So much has now been written about the life and strife and times of George Steinbrenner that it is impossible to not court redundancy. I’ll be brief. He was George Patton the philanthropist. Bill Gates with personality and a pathological vision for success. He was outrageous, shrewd, ego-driven and tender-hearted.
But two recently-recalled, vintage Steinbrenner acts notably underscored who he was when he wasn’t being a bombastic caricature or the patron saint of locals in need.
His well-chronicled, hands-on modus operandi included the literal. Beyond firings. Beyond check writing. It was the time he personally intervened when Hurricane Andrew hit Miami in 1992. He showed up at the Salvation Army in Tampa and drove a truck with bottled water overnight to the ravaged area. Most pop-culture icons wouldn’t do that.
The other instance was a reminder of how important his Palma Ceia-based life was to him. He once regaled a Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce luncheon with what he would tell those who chronically wondered how a man who so embodied all that was the clout and cachet of New York could have any other civic allegiance.
“I tell them until they’re tired of hearing it,” he said in 1997. “I don’t live in New York. I live in Tampa, Florida.”
Indeed, he did.