Steinbrenner Tributes: Honoring a Winner -- or the Ruthless Pursuit of Winning?

When the media coverage of George Steinbrenner's death began last week, I had to shield my eyes from all the blustery tributes that glorified the contentious "lion" who changed the game of baseball forever.

The Yankees are my team, and New York is my city. My heart surges with pride when we win. I am reliably grumpy when we don't. If happiness is rooting for a sports team that occasionally doesn't disappoint you, George Steinbrenner has contributed undeniably to my personal satisfaction.

But he doesn't merit this posthumous adulation, which continued over the weekend with coverage of memorial services both public and private. Nor does he deserve the high honor that Mayor Michael Bloomberg bestowed upon him: flying the American flag at half-staff to respect his passing.

Walking around New York last week, I was aghast to see that municipal buildings were bowing for a tyrant who routinely demeaned his talented players, fired managers willy-nilly, and ran his sporting franchise like a totalitarian regime.

Steinbrenner's main accomplishment was driving player salaries to unreasonable heights with his double-fists of cash (which he banged impatiently on the major league baseball bargaining table), and his unwavering belief that he could buy success.

Yes, success was what he bought. Also, apparently, a lot of undue admiration.

Buster Olney of ESPN wrote that Steinbrenner's attitude was "distinctly American," and that he transcended baseball with his dominating competitive edge and refusal to finish second. My Politics Daily colleague Walter Shapiro wrote that though "Steinbrenner demeaned almost everyone who worked for him," the bossy Boss embodied "classic American character traits."

Mayor Bloomberg called him a "quintessential New Yorker."

I think the only thing Steinbrenner personified is what's wrong with our culture.

He didn't invest in people. He invested in winning. He didn't give a second thought to shaking up the lineup, trading midseason, rearranging, berating. There was no continuity, except his utter ruthlessness. He changed managers 17 times in his first 17 seasons as owner. He hired and fired Billy Martin five times, and Lou Pinella twice. Instead of examining a systemic issue with the team and addressing it, he pinpointed an individual to blame. Teamwork was irrelevant.

In 1973, the year he bought the Yankees, the average salary for a major leaguer was $36,566. In 2010, it was $3 million (the Yankees' average salary this year is $8 million). The team's cable station, YES Network, is now in its eighth year of operations and is worth more than $3 billion, twice the value of the team itself. Baseball is rich. Steinbrenner made it corporate. The beautiful game may never recover.

In the '70s, Steinbrenner demanded that New York City finance stadium renovations that ended up costing the city $160 million, according to Dave Zirin. In 2009, Steinbrenner persuaded taxpayers to build him parking garages for the new Yankee Stadium.

When he was unhappy, well, he could always threaten to move the team to Connecticut.

I hope history will not look kindly on these moves. A winning franchise seems to excuse a lot of boneheaded decisions, but I imagine that if the Yankees ever suffer a Baltimore Orioles-style reversal of fortune, we may question those horrific misuses of public money, and the manipulative means with which they were procured.

Did I mention that Steinbrenner pleaded guilty to a felony charge? He made illegal contributions to President Richard Nixon's re-election campaign (and was later pardoned by President Ronald Reagan).

In 1990, Commissioner Fay Vincent served Steinbrenner with a lifetime suspension after the Yankees owner paid a gambler to investigate slugger Dave Winfield, just after Steinbrenner signed Winfield to a 10-year, $23 million contract. Steinbrenner (somehow) made it back to baseball in 1993.

What is the significance of lowering our national flag for such a man?

By saluting Steinbrenner, Mayor Bloomberg is articulating a presiding belief about American creativity -- that in America, money people are the uber-creators.

This is the case not only in sports but the arts, where studio heads and producers are celebrated for deciding what movies will be made and what lines will be cut from screenplays; it's where investors are honored for deciding which shows will make it to the stage. And the real creative forces, the true talent -- the writers, the actors, the musicians -- are seen as mere employees.

That Steinbrenner is seen as representing our nation's values and deserving praise for it is unfortunate proof of our sorry state.

If we're going to align our spirits with something greater, let it be a love of the game, not a reverence for cutthroat business acumen (or proclivity toward illegal activities). Baseball is nourished on our fields, practiced by our youth, recognized around the world as a great American game. The sport has brought us some of the best athletes the modern world has ever known. It is a game of unparalleled strategy and elegance.

For millions around the country who sit in nose-bleed seats and dunk soggy pretzels in mustard; for those who gather around televisions to feel the little heart-skip that happens when a line drive sails into left field; for those who still care about our national pastime, we must take the time to connect with what we truly love about it.

Do we love baseball more now that we can watch reruns of it 24 hours a day on the YES network? Now that the salary for a utility ballplayer is 54 times what the typical American household secures in a year?

We must have a terribly weakened sense of national pride if we will honor above others a man who represents neither the best of the game, nor the best of a world-class city, but the kind of personal avarice we are increasingly taught to worship.