NY Times baseball blog - The glimpses of a no-longer-vibrant George Steinbrenner during spring training can be jolting to those of us who remember the Boss when he was full of energy and brio. In the old days, reporters struggled to keep up with Steinbrenner as he walked briskly around the complex, often in his trademark aviator sunglasses and white Yankees windbreaker. Now, Steinbrenner needs help to get around. About half an hour before the start of Tuesday night’s Yankees-Red Sox game at Steinbrenner Field, two Yankees employees prepared a wheelchair in the wide hallway across from the Yankees’ clubhouse. One couldn’t decide whether to put one cushion on the chair or two. “One,” the other said. “He likes one.” Several workers helped him into the chair, and they wheeled him to an elevator in the lobby, which whisked him up to a luxury suite on the first-base side.

When you read a story like this, it makes you realize what an extraordinarily long time Steinbrenner has owned the Yankees. Two generations have grown up not being able to imagine anyone but him running the team. I'll be honest; I've never had a bad day when Steinbrenner's team lost. And when he'd go all bellicose and start calling out his players, his coaches or his front office and blaming them for everything that went wrong with the club and starting another shitstorm of controversy, it was like a dose of Ecstacy for me. But make no mistake about it; I would've loved to have had him running the Sox. That management style doesn't work all the time. And in fact it probably backfires more than it helps. And no question he did some sleazy stuff in his time, like hiring a Private Eye to spy on Dave Winfield like he was some neck-tattooed, trailer park babydaddy on "Cheaters," a move that got King George kicked out of baseball for a couple of years. But no one ever accused the cantankerous old bastard of not trying to bring his customers championships. John Henry and Larry Lucchino can whine all they want about the unfairness of it all, but at least Steinbrenner puts the money back into his product. Unlike the Jacobses or so many other Major League owners who take luxury tax money from the Sox and Yankees, put in their pockets. say they can't compete, then field AAAA teams. Steinbrenner has always been the Hindenburg: a big, fat, combustible German gasbag. But I wouldn't have minded him being our big, fat, combustible German gasbag. And it's always sad when a guy like that loses his fastball.