Growing up in New York I was a fan of both the Mets and the Yankees until I was 10 years old in 1973. Sure the Mets were my favorite team but I was a young sports junkie, and my dad’s team was the Yankees, so I watched every game, and cheered on the team especially the late great Bobby Murcer who he traded. After that I stopped watching.

I’ve been reading about George since I was a young boy and he’s had a lot of stories. The multiple firings of Billy Martin, Bob Lemon, and so many other managers. I was never a fan of the way he treated his skippers but he was doing what he thought was in the best interest of the team.

I used to hear about his amazing charitable endeavors and his support of all of our U.S. Olympic teams, mainly through other people and not the press and that was the side of George that was very appealing and overtime it outweighed the other stuff as far as I was concerned.

I won’t be hypocritical and say after the fact that I loved the guy because that wasn’t the case, however, I did respect him.

When he took over the Yankees they were a mess. He then made them more of a mess, for a short time, but he changed the culture and gave the swagger returned to the organization and except for a few bad stretches his tenure was a huge success.

Bob Sheppard the voice of the Yankees passed away just a few days ago and now George Steinbrenner has died. This is a sad time in the Bronx and like it or not another era of Yankee baseball has been ushered in but not in the way that anybody would have wanted.