RIP, George Steinbrenner: 'What the hell did you trade Jay Buhner for?!?!?'
The late Yankees owner was a frequent source of comedy on "Seinfeld."
The late George Steinbrenner.
George Steinbrenner, the mercurial, temperamental, and never dull owner of the New York Yankees for my entire lifetime, died this morning of a heart attack.
I'll leave it to others to weigh in on both the bad (Nixon, Howard Spira, Billy Martin, Steve Trout, several decades of emotionally abusing employees) and the good (seven World Series titles, a relentless - if at times poorly-planned - commitment to winning, less-publicized kinder moments) that came with Boss George. Instead, I wanted to remember George Steinbrenner, "Seinfeld" character.
Steinbrenner never played himself in an aired version of the show (though I believe he did once film a scene that was cut). Instead, the character always appeared in silhouette or from behind, and was voiced by Larry David himself (which was easier to do pre-"Curb," when few people knew what David sounded like), and was the most wonderfully loopy boss on a series that took great pleasure in giving its characters weird and hilarious bosses (Mr. Pitt, Mr. Kruger, etc.). Steinbrenner was introduced to the show during the end of the Yankees' early-'90s misery (one of the show's earliest cameos by a Yankee player was the unfortunate Danny Tartabull) and was still around after the team won its first World Series in almost 20 years, but the character was just as funny whether the real team was good or bad.
Here are links to two compilations of most of the great George-meets-George scenes, with the highlight being Steinbrenner's trip to the Costanza house around the six-minute mark of the first video: Part One & Part Two.
Enjoy.
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All through his childhood, Alan Sepinwall's relatives told his parents, "All that boy does is watch television! How's he going to make a living doing that?" His career as a TV critic has been 15 years and counting of his attempt to answer their concerns. "What's Alan Watching" is a blog whose title is self-explanatory: Alan watches TV shows, then writes about what he watched. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
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July 13, 2010 at 11:26AM EST Reply to Comment"He had a rocket for an arm!"
July 13, 2010 at 11:44AM EST Reply to CommentHere's the Steinbrenner cameo on Seinfeld: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LD3udSurzw
JD
July 13, 2010 at 12:30PM EST Reply to CommentExcellent little calzone you got their Costanza
Ryan W
July 13, 2010 at 12:37PM EST Reply to CommentDon't forget his SNL appearance, including the sketch where he had a hard time firing his employees.
Steve I forgot all about that. Classic stuff.
July 13, 2010 at 6:36PM EST"You can't have people worried all the time that they'll be fired if they make one mistake. That's lunacy! Only a jackass would run his business that way!"
chalmers
July 13, 2010 at 12:39PM EST Reply to Comment"My baseball people said Ken Phelps..." That line showed Larry David to be a true Yankee fan. During the frustrating 80s and early 90s, George would blame poor trades (such as Phelps/Buhner) on his "baseball people." After that episode, I don't think he ever used the phrase again.
bhietanen
July 13, 2010 at 12:48PM EST Reply to Comment"He fires people like it's a bodily function!"
Matt W
July 13, 2010 at 12:57PM EST Reply to CommentYou know as painful as it is I had to let a few people go over the years. Yogi Berra, Lou Pinella, Bucky Dent, Billy Martin, Dallas Green, Dick Houser, Bill Virdon, Billy Martin, Scott Marrow, Billy Martin, Bob Lemmon, Billy Martin, Gene Michael, Buck Showalter, … uh, tut!, . . .George, you didn't hear that from me.
RIP
July 13, 2010 at 4:20PM EST Reply to CommentYou could put that stuff on a shoe and it would taste pretty good to me.
Steve
July 13, 2010 at 6:34PM EST Reply to CommentI never knew LD did the Steinbrenner voice. I'm going to have to go back and listen to see if I can recognize it.
Tausif Khan
July 14, 2010 at 12:47AM EST Reply to Commentmy favorite was when Steinbrenner called Hideki Irabu a toad.
alex
July 14, 2010 at 6:54PM EST Reply to Commentan interesting editorial from the ny times' maureen dowd on how the character came to be
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/opinion/14dowd.html?ref=opinion