[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12808-12809]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    REMEMBERING GEORGE STEINBRENNER

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, today America heard the sad news that 
George Steinbrenner, one of Major League Baseball's most influential 
team owners, died at the age of 80. I rise today to express my 
condolences

[[Page 12809]]

to George's family and share my intention of offering a resolution 
today, along with Senators Gillibrand, Bill Nelson, and LeMieux to 
honor his memory.
  He is survived by his beloved wife Joan, his sisters Susan and Judy, 
his children Hank, Jennifer, Jessica, and Hal, and his 13 
grandchildren.
  Like New York and like the Yankees, George Steinbrenner was a 
champion. He was someone about whom you can truly say there will never 
be another one like him.
  Before we even get into baseball, George Steinbrenner was a very 
accomplished man. He served his country for 2 years in the Air Force. 
He was the owner of the American Ship Building Company, the dominant 
shipbuilding company in the Great Lakes region during its existence. He 
donated his time and money to countless charitable causes and was a 
driving force in the U.S. Olympic Committee, where he made sure 
America's athletes could reach their full potential, bringing home gold 
medals and making sports fans around this great country proud of our 
athletes.
  Many of us know George as being a giant in Major League Baseball. 
There is no denying he changed the face of baseball forever.
  Before George Steinbrenner, the New York Yankees were in shambles. 
The once great franchise had become moribund.
  I have always been a Yankees fan, even though I am from Brooklyn. By 
the time I was old enough to appreciate baseball, the Dodgers had just 
left for Los Angeles, and it would be several years before the Mets 
were created. So the Yankees were the only team in town, and like most 
of my friends on the streets of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, I became a 
rabid Yankee fan.
  Those were the glory years of Mantle, Maris, Ford, Howard, and Berra. 
But by the midsixties, my heroes began to retire, and the once great 
Yankees began to slide.
  Those were not easy years to root for the Yankees. People forget. 
Throughout the late sixties and early seventies, the Yankees were 
consistently one of the worst performing teams in Major League 
Baseball.
  But all that changed when George Steinbrenner bought the team in 
1973. He brought to the Yankees a new hope that turned around this 
period of decline. By 1976, the Yankees were back in the World Series, 
and in 1977 and 1978, we brought the championship back home to New 
York.
  Since then, the Yankees have once again become a household name in 
New York and around the country. They have won 11 American League 
pennants and 7 World Championships. The Yankees went, the day George 
Steinbrenner took them over, from being a mediocre team to the 
preeminent sports franchise in the world.
  George Steinbrenner did that. He turned a scrappy group of baseball 
players into a team New Yorkers are proud to support.
  The Yankees of his day are reminiscent of the Yankees of the 
twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, and the early sixties. All New 
Yorkers and baseball fans owe George Steinbrenner a huge thank you for 
changing the face of American baseball.
  He was even beloved in Florida. Legends Field, the Yankees' spring 
training facility in Tampa, was renamed Steinbrenner Field in March 
2008 in his honor by the Hillsborough County Commission and the Tampa 
City Council.
  He was a giant in baseball innovation, making baseball a truly global 
game.
  I, along with millions of Yankee fans--many not even in the State of 
New York--are thankful for the countless hours of joy we have 
experienced watching his team at the stadium or following them on 
television or radio. George Steinbrenner was truly a New York icon.
  My thoughts and my condolences go out to his loved ones, to the whole 
Yankee family, and to the millions of New York baseball fans. We have 
lost our giant.

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