I’m sitting in a free wi-fi zone at JFK airport right now, about to board a plane to Italy for a vacation with my family. I’ll be back on August 1. I’m in a wonderful mood except that driving down, the radio was full of “the top story of the day,” the death of George Steinbrenner. I feel genuine sympathy for the Steinbrenner family. I do wish that I hadn’t had to listen to so many quotes and tributes containing lines like ”good losers are losers” and “winning is everything” and this is what life is about and George Steinbrenner made so many of us proud to be New Yorkers.
The man had a major impact on the sport I love and it could be argued that George Steinbrenner had a significant impact on the fandom of all Mets fans. I’ll blog about this when I get back but for the time being I’m glad I’m going away. Little of what I have to say about Mr. Steinbrenner would be appropriate to say on the day after he died. I will say that if George Steinbrenner had purchased the Mets in the 1970s instead of the Yankees and had conducted himself as an owner in the same exact ways, I would not have been a Mets fan. I would have found something else to occupy my time.
Nicely put. While I also sympathize with his family, I don’t think that I can bear to read another article that says something to the effect of it’s ok to treat people like garbage if the end result is that you win. Please. Talk about glorifying bullying.
You go on vacation, and look at what happens!
Come back before it’s too late!
I’ve thought of that Ken. I do have Internet access everywhere I’m going in Italy and I know what’s happening. They’ve won one game since I’ve left. One game. But I’m not going to get myself into a state of mind in which I think that I can’t leave home because the Mets will lose if I do. It’s the Mets who should never leave home.
I agree with you on Steinbrenner.
And it’s funny because Wilpon and current Mets management have turned me off of being a fan of the team. As an organization, the Mets sure ain’t what they used to be.