I'm going to put my Phillies bias to one side and speak frankly about Mr. Steinbrenner. As a long suffering Philadelphia sports fan who's had to endure ALOT of ownership shenanigans over the past 40 years, I always LIKED and RESPECTED George Steinbrenner. Whether it was Norman Braman's cheapness when he owned the Eagles, Harold Katz' misguided generosity and basketball acumen w/the 76ers, The Phillies' ineptitude when it came to over all organizational chaos (until fairly recently) or the Flyers' inability to be flexible in hockey's trends and changes…to me Steinbrenner was nothing short of a deity in sports…here was a man who didn't care what other people thought about him in his tireless pursuit of putting the best possible team on the field to give his franchise the greatest opportunity to succeed. I was always jealous of the Yankees ability to just go out and get the best players…even if the team wasn't winning, at least you had some of the greatest names in the game gracing your field and entertaining you year after year. He wasn't always tactful, graceful or successful BUT it wasn't through lack of trying on his part. Yeah of course there's a secret corner of your heart that secretly giggled w/glee when he'd spend all that money and not make the playoffs but I remember how much MORE the Dodgers broke my heart over the years and it was a no brainer to cheer for the Bronx Bombers, especially after the Orioles (the closest American league team to Philly where I grew up) beat the Phils in '83 thus earning a place on my ban list. I didn't care about them one way or another until the steroid scandal broke and essentially nothing was done to anyone but Clemens. I was secretly rooting for A-rod (who I otherwise detest) because I thought he was clean to take the homerun record from another cheating bozo Baroid Bonds. In the past, Mr. Steinbrenner hadn't tolerated this kind of thing (publically) and that was the sign I knew that he was really ill. It saddened me and cheapened the Yankees in my eyes. They can have the title from last year, I suppose they were the "better" team but I suspect it was a bone being tossed their way by the anemic Bud Selig commissioned league.

I'm saddened by his death, but was even more depressed at some of the images we'd seen of him later on, it reminds me of Muhammed Ali now. A pale shadow of his former self. I'll always remember his antics and insane battles w/Billy Martin (RIP) and the bannings but more then that, how he orchestrated an almost phoenix like rebirth of one of the greatest American sports brands/franchises of all time. You don't need to be a Yankee fan to appreciate a true maverick and he was indeed exactly that.

That is too bad, /sad.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />

Definitely a major loss in the baseball world he looked pretty fragile in that video going down the stairs

RIP George.