Steinbrenner also writes large checks for MLB revenue sharing and the so-called luxury tax, monies that find their way to other clubs.

“You have to be willing to spend to win,” he once told me.

There is no doubt that Steinbrenner can be difficult to work for and with. He changed managers 20 times in his first 23 seasons, and five times he hired and fired the hot tempered Billy Martin. He selected Joe Torre as his manager in 1995 and that relationship has endured and been highly productive.

Some around the game regard him as a bully while others, and especially the Yankee faithful, see him as a champion who will spend what it takes to win. The Yankee payroll now exceeds $200 million, easily the highest in all of Major League Baseball.

“Major League Baseball is more than the Yankees, but it would be a lot less without them,” Don Walton, columnist for the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star observed.

Steinbrenner is, without question, a highly successful entrepreneur who can sound more like a college football coach than an owner of a sports empire. A student-athlete at Williams College, he began a brief career in coaching as a football assistant at Northwestern and Purdue.

Steinbrenner has been extremely generous to charities in New York and Tampa, where he resides. The cab drivers in Tampa love him for his good works. He has given to needed health, social, and educational projects, as well as to college and university athletic programs.

During my time in MLB, he never said no to a deserving project that the league supported and often was the first to give. When fined, he liked to argue about which charity should receive the money.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Pain on the skating rink, flying high on the hardwood, upsets on the football field, and more. more photos

Steinbrenner was suspended twice from baseball, but each time he returned with renewed zeal to win on the field. He never forgot the fans and the formula for winning.

At 76, George M. Steinbrenner is a true original, a Yankee Doodle Dandy born on the Fourth of July. Above all, he never flinched, but did it his way. He deserves a plaque at Cooperstown.

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