We Lost The Boss

Ishmael: Ehhhh, you can't fool us; it's the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he's got a great secret in him.

Elijah: I have, lad, I have. At sea one day, you'll smell land where there'll be no land, and on that day Ahab will go to his grave, but he'll rise again within the hour. He will rise and beckon. Then all - all save one shall follow.
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.

We might have known that as he became more obscure and irrelevant; George Steinbrenner, would somehow manage on the day of the All Star game to play his final 'look at me' card, and would cast his voluminous shadow on a game and a team that he has more or less transcended. I actually started to write about the All Star Game, but George somehow managed to stand in my way, something that he'd perfected as owner of the New York Yankees.

I don't have much to say about his passing, other than with all due respect to the deceased, Charley Finley was George Steinbrenner before George Steinbrenner. Charley, however, owned the K. C. Athletics and later the Oakland Athletics, not the New York Athletics. George Steinbrenner was iconic as an owner of a professional team, but he owes his brush with fame more to the city where his team performed than anything of his own doing. I'll do my best to give him the respect he deserves by saying, when we think of being in the right place at the right time, he created the time, but the place created him.