Brian Burwell has some thoughts on the recent George Steibrenner tirade.
I have been in St. Louis for nearly three years, and I wouldn't know Cardinals principal owner Bill DeWitt if he were close enough to smack me on the head. I have never met Blues owner Bill Laurie. Georgia Frontiere is a nice lady, but she never sought me out to weigh in on the Kurt Warner-Marc Bulger debate.
I kind of like that. It's not that I don't like colorful owners. I kind of enjoy the goofiness of Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who will spare no expense to make a winner of his basketball team. I certainly like the public face of Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank, who treats his fans like consumers, not spectators.
Steinbrenner is like none of them. Steinbrenner's style is to assign blame and take credit. Yet the people who know his patterns best - the New York sports writers who cover the Yankees regularly - have a far more accurate view of the facts. Newsday baseball writer Kevin Davidoff can't understand why Steinbrenner's selective memory missed out on the fact that he approved the spending of $59.4 million of that $200-million payroll on players who are past their prime and not worth their current salaries.
It's not just how much you spend, but also on whom it is spent that matters.