You didnt have to love him to know him.

Truth be told I’ve never been fond of “the Boss.”. You have to realize that I didn’t fully understand who he was until 1997 when the Yankees lost to the Cleveland Indians in the playoffs and he went on a public tirade. I thought he was a pretentious jerk when my more knowledgeable cousin, said “that’s just the Boss being the Boss.”

So that was acceptable behavior huh? Two years ago I read a book titled “the Bronx is Burning” by Jonathan Mahler and I finally understood the bizarre behavior and shockingly realized that the behavior from the early 2000’s was a tamer version of his former self.

Its in bad taste to focus on the negatives of someone immediately following his death but it lends a clue as to who George Steinbrenner really was. Was he the impossible to work for guy who fired Billy Martin 5 times in sometimes crazy fashion? Was he the zany owner depicted on Seinfeld? Was he the caring guy who took Ray Negrone in when he busted him for graffiti’ng around Yankee stadium and giving him a job? Or was he the guy who was banned for life from baseball after hiring a reputed gambler to get information to use against Dave Winfield one of his former players who received plenty of venom?

There’s so many different sides to him. You hear the bad and the good, and yet you can’t find a middle ground. You hear about his relentless pursuit of championships which often had him mending and ending relationships with employees and friends.

Then you hear about the guys he loved. The ones he couldn’t turn his back on. Two come to mind immediately for me, Doc Gooden and Darryl Strawberry. I found it odd that he would give these two second chances constantly. They were known as former Mets. Two guys who helped the team in Queens rule New York in the 80’s while Steinbrenner’s Yanks were stumbling. When George returned to the game in 1993, he came back with a different viewpoint. He trusted his scouts and their expertise in building a champion from within.

By 96 they were champions, but wouldn’t you know those two former Mets helped the Yankees return to glory and maybe that was what made it easy to like them. In his eyes these former stars helped his team back into relevance and more importantly dominance and the over riding theme in everyone’s summation of George is that he wanted to win.

So that first title in a really long time (well anything past a year was a generation in George’s eyes) was in essence due to the efforts of two well known New Yorkers, former stars who helped resurrect his franchise to where he wanted: the top.

George loved stars and he reveled in the New York rivalry. For him, the 90s were about wrestling the city from the Mets back to the Yankees.* So when the Mets and Yanks played in the World Series in 2000, it was an intensely personal series for him. Forget the championship, he cared for the city’s bragging rights.

His legacy is rooted in his polarizing persona. The aura that he carried which froze a room. You can imagine the Darth Vader theme playing as he walked the room if his life had a soundtrack. He was the guy that walked into a room, and could control it by virtue of his presence never having to say a single word.

His pursuit of titles was admirable as was his need to impress his father. He wasn’t able to buy his hometown Cleveland Indians and “settled” on the Yankees. He bought it for $8.8 million and made it into the $1.6 billion empire it is today.

It took a George Steinbrenner to do that. The eventual rise of the Yankees was due to George’s insistence on having the Yankees as a first class organization and doing everything the same way. The Yankees today are an organization that goes after every major free agent, that pays the biggest contracts and is a behemoth in sports itself and just so happens to play in the world’s number one market.

It took who he was to make the Yankees what it is today. Fact is, the Yankees have used his whatever it takes attitude to bring championships to build the team.

I envy that. While owners like the Wilpons look to save money, George went full speed ahead because he managed his company with his heart and with passion, not with his brain. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. But Yankee fans can never say that they weren’t always doing everything possible to win a championship and that’s what makes winning in New York that big. Its an expected outcome because this city more than any other has the resources to do it. He’s not even the richest owner in baseball. But he was the one willing to go above and beyond.

I remember when Hank and Hal Steinbrenner took over. People immediately wondered whether they would be like George, but not surprisingly, they weren’t. How could they? George swung from one end of the pendulum to the other. He went from nice to nasty. From giving to bullying. No one could ever duplicate George Steinbrenner.

This last week has been especially tough to the Yankee family. They are the favorites to win their sports leading 28th championship. They have lost their public address announcer, Bob Shephard, and George Steinbrenner, links to their past.

I suppose this moment had to come eventually. That death conquers all and would even swallow the giant that was Steinbrenner. Most outside the New York area may not understand his importance, but everyone knows him. Make no mistake that his presence was felt in more ways than just pennants in New York. His mark was left in free agency. His YES Network is a multimillion dollar network that makes him more revenue and gives him control over how his brand is broadcasted.

Steinbrenner at his simplest was a man who wanted to win, nothing more, nothing less. I may not have had nothing nice to say about him before but it doesn’t mean I don’t get him for who he was and what he meant to sports. You don’t have to hate, you only have to appreciate.