Come closer. I want to tell you a secret: That championship the Yankees won last year was for George Steinbrenner, but it was by Hal Steinbrenner.
It means that in all significant ways when it comes to running the Yankees, George Steinbrenner was already gone. He was, at best, Vito Corleone after handing the family business over to Michael. Maybe there was some counseling or some explaining of history by the old man.
But if are you are wondering what the post-George Yankees are going to look like, here is my advice: Look at these Yankees. They have the highest payroll, a stacked rotation and last week they were on the doorstep of obtaining Cliff Lee. It was a George move, but approved by his youngest son.
It might not be business as usual if by usual you are referring to how George ran the Yankees in his prime. But it will be business like the past few years when the understated Hal ran it — and apparently how it will run for years with a Steinbrenner remaining atop the masthead.
Hank Steinbrenner — think a combination of hot-headed Sonny and underwhelming Fredo — briefly oversaw baseball operations after the 2007 season. He quickly burned out, not fully understanding the time and scrutiny that came with the job, especially if you were going to try to be Boss Jr. with loud proclamations.
Hal stepped into the breach, though it felt more out of responsibility to the family business than love for the job. So there was an assumption that whenever George died, so to would the Steinbrenner obligation to owning the franchise. It was not hard to imagine a frenzy of the super-rich bidding to buy the Yankees after George’s death.
Reserved and protective of his privacy, Hal projected the wrong fit for the job. Except Hal did a funny thing: He changed the way the Yankees Boss operates. Over the past few years, he learned he actually could run the Yankees under the radar. He has managed leadership without bluster or much inspection of his private life. He rarely speaks in public, offering almost none of the state of the Yankees messages that his father could deliver multiple times a day, especially in bad times. Does Hal burn to run the Yankees like his father? No. However, he has learned to like this job, and — as it turns out — the Yankees are in the Steinbrenner family blood now; George’s four children all having grown up in pinstripes.
That is largely because the succession already has taken place. Even in periods when George was more alert and clear in his thoughts and words, which ironically included the few weeks before the heart attack that killed him Tuesday morning, he was still now mostly a figurehead despite lingering attempts by some in the inner circle to keep the legend of the in-charge Boss flourishing.
Instead, Hal had taken a few key criteria from his dad: Keep the payroll, star power and attention to the brand high. But he has added a few distinctly non-George elements. He is way more analytical than his go-with-your-gut father. He is demanding, but not a yeller or quick to demean or threaten. He will bend sometimes on payroll, as he did with Mark Teixeira. But unlike his dad, he will not be influenced nearly as much by the smell of a championship or the whiff of sentimentality. That is why he refused to expand payroll during last season after Cashman had worked out a trade for Mike Cameron or after the season to keep a beloved veteran in Johnny Damon.
In the end, Hal’s slightly more cautious version of what we have been programmed to believe Steinbrenner ownership should be will be judged just like his dad’s tenure: with championships. So he has one in the bank already as a farewell gift for the original Boss and as a calling card that there is a new Steinbrenner in town.