Friday, April 30, 2010

Hal Steinbrenner the real Yankees boss

Maybe I should stop calling him Jr. Boss. It's now abundantly clear that Hal Steinbrenner is fully in control of the New York Yankees, stepping out of the large shadow of his dad George Steinbrenner to take the reins of the team.

Although he shares responsibility with his brother Hank, Hal is in charge of the day-to-day running of baseball's most formidable team and is the public face of the franchise. While Hank has more of his father's tendency to bluster, Hal seems to be the quiet, contemplative type. Long gone are the days when someone named Steinbrenner was grabbing the back pages of the New York tabloids. For the Yankees organization, it's probably a welcome change of pace.

While Hal says he still runs things past his old man, he is the one who actually makes the decisions. That was clear during the offseason when he gave general manager Brian Cashman a budget and stuck to it despite tremendous pressure to repeat as World Series champs and doubts about whether the Yankees could truly become more budget conscious. When it came to his Yankees, George never made a dollar he wasn't willing to spend. Not Hal. He wouldn’t be bullied by the media or fans into parting with one more dollar than he wanted, even for fan favorite Johnny Damon.

Hal is proving he is his own man when it comes to running his team. He definitely needs a new nickname. Any suggestions?

No comments:

Post a Comment