Meet the New Boss. Same as the Old Boss?

Hank Steinbrenner has the style, but not the sway, of the Yankees' owner.

by Franz Lidz
May 2 2008


George Steinbrenner, left, and his son, Hank, watching a game last month in Tampa.

George Steinbrenner’s management style is neatly summed up in a series of headlines from The Onion:

• After New York failed to win the 2002 World Series: “Yankees Ensure 2003 Pennant by Signing Every Player in Baseball.”

• After signing the hero of the 2004 World Series to be the Yanks’ center fielder: “Steinbrenner Names Johnny Damon as New Yankee Scapegoat.”

• After the team’s first-round playoff elimination by Detroit in 2006: “George Steinbrenner Fires Tigers.”

The Boss, as the Yankees’ principal owner often calls himself, is widely regarded as a meddlesome, manipulative bully with spirit, but no soul. Indeed, back in the late ’80s and early ’90s, he reveled in the nickname Attila the Hun.

Steinbrenner is a confessed admirer of that self-styled Scourge of God. For those without a scorecard, the fifth century paragon of barbarity murdered his brother to establish uncontested rule over the Huns.

Not surprisingly, his preferred guide to success has long been Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun, a 1985 collection of management metaphors constructed by the author Wess Roberts. For years, Steinbrenner kept a dog-eared copy on his office desk at Yankee Stadium.

Among his favorite passages:

• If people speak evil of you, erroneously attribute misdeeds to you, and will not serve a greater purpose, you must do away with those adversaries or you must behave in a manner that will encourage them to amend their judgments.”

• “Never appoint acting chieftains. Put the most capable Hun in charge, and give him both responsibility and authority. Then hold him accountable.”

And, perhaps most tellingly:

• “You must recognize and accept that your greatness will be made possible through extremes of personality—the very extremes that sometimes make for campfire satire and legendary stories.”

These days, with the 78-year-old Yankees potentate’s physical health and mental capacity in decline, his oldest son Hank has become the mouthpiece of the empire. Hank, 51, had served a brief apprenticeship in the front office in 1986.

Back then, the shy, mild-mannered "Boy George" consciously distanced himself from his old man. He advocated stability in the manager’s chair, continuity on the roster, and favored a strong farm system over the free-agent route his father took. He said he wanted to emulate Col. Jacob Ruppert, the benevolent beer baron who paid for the "House That Ruth Built."

After the ’86 season, Hank virtually disappeared from Yankeedom. When he reemerged last year, he sounded much like his dad. During his two decades in the wilderness, he had picked up many of George’s traits and mannerisms: the good old boy backslapping and the crisp, self-confident military walk taught in institutes like the Culver Military Academy in Indiana, which both he and his dad attended.

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See Sidebars: The Steinbrenner Legacy