AROUND THE NATION
July 13, 2010
George Steinbrenner got his start in basketball
This feature also appears on
FoxSports.com
The Boss is dead. No, not Bruce, the OTHER Boss, the
one across the Hudson. Never again will the icon
that is George Steinbrenner barrel through the
Yankee offices following the smell of his beloved
calzones.
Love him or hate him, you have to concede that few
others had as big an influence over shaping the pro
sports landscape of the last 25 years than George
Steinbrenner did.
When he assumed ownership of the Yankees in 1973
along with general partner Mike Burke, small market
sports teams could still compete and win on a
regular basis.
Sure, George brought NYC a couple of World Series
titles in '77 and '78, but franchises from towns
like Pittsburgh and Cincinnati were still very much
in the mix back then.
But as the years rolled on, everything Steinbrenner
did with the Yankees he did on a grand scale: the
big contracts, the championships and those massive
payrolls.
In building his empire in the Bronx, Steinbrenner
widened the moat between the large market behemoths
and their smaller market brethren. When was the last
time Cincinnati or Pittsburgh were relevant in the
game of professional baseball? Thank (or curse)
George for that.
Now all professional sports leagues wrestle with how
to keep their smaller market teams both competitive
and profitable. That's especially true in the NBA,
where last week Cleveland lost LeBron James to the
brighter lights of Miami.
In many ways, the Cavalier franchise is now the
poster child for the disadvantaged small market
franchises of the world. When push comes to shove,
these Davids can't find a way to overcome the
Goliaths.
But Steinbrenner has much more to do with the
basketball history of Cleveland than having helped
create a pro sports environment in which the Cavs
had little hope of holding on to the NBA's biggest
star.
You see, the Yankees were not Steinbrenner's first
foray into pro sports ownership. That came 50 years
ago when he owned the Cleveland Pipers basketball
team.
No, not the Pittsburgh Pipers, the CLEVELAND Pipers.
Here's a little back story on how Big Stein came to
own a hoops team along the shores of Lake Erie. In
the summer of 1960, the Lakers pulled up stakes and
moved from Minneapolis (you see, the nickname made
sense back then) to Los Angeles.
Fair enough, but this really got the goat of Harlem
Globetrotters owner Abe Saperstein. Not happy with
simply owning his own successful team of hoops
barnstormers, Saperstein longed to own an NBA
franchise.
Back then, his Trotters frequently served as an
opening game for NBA franchises to help boost
attendance. In his frequent dealings with the NBA,
he became convinced that he would be given the
league's franchise in Los Angeles.
So you can understand how upset he must have been
when the Lakers made the move west. He was so upset
that he started his own rival league, the American
Basketball League, in 1961.
That's where Steinbrenner enters the picture. In the
late 1950's he had become treasurer of the family
business, Kinsman Marine Transit Company. But he
wasn't satisfied just being an executive in the
shipping business.
When Saperstein's league was formed, Steinbrenner
jumped at the opportunity. He and a group of
investors came up with $25,000, bought the Piper
franchise of the National Industrial Basketball
League and moved it over to the ABL.
Steinbrenner hired a 24-year old named Mike Cleary
to be the general manager of the club, and together
they had a hand in making sports history right off
the bat.
Big Stein gave the green light to Cleary's hiring of
former Tennesee A&I coach John McClendon. With that,
McClendon became the first African-American head
coach in pro basketball history.
But this wouldn't be a Steinbrenner story if it
didn't involved a coaching change, and sure enough,
McClendon resigned halfway through the 1961-62
season because the team was experiencing financial
troubles. Cleary himself wouldn't last the season,
becoming the Boss's first pro sports firing.
McClendon was replaced on the Piper bench by former
Celtics star Bill Sharman, who went on to lead the
team to the ABL's first (and only) championship.
With his first firing and his first coaching change
under his belt, Steinbrenner would then perform
another move that he would eventually become known
for with the Yankees: big spending.
In the offseason following Cleveland’s championship
run, he signed Ohio State star Jerry Lucas to a
two-year, $50,000 contract. The move got the NBA's
attention, so much so that they opened up talks with
the ABL in the summer of 1962 about a possible
merger.
When those talks fell through, the NBA next turned
its attention to adding Steinbrenner's team. For an
expansion fee of $400,000 ($100,000 of which would
go to compensate the Cincinnati Royals, the NBA team
that had the rights to Lucas), the Pipers would
become the league's 10th franchise.
The ABL filed a lawsuit in an attempt to block
Cleveland from joining the NBA, but it wasn't
needed. In those days, Steinbrenner wasn't exactly
flush with cash and was unable to meet the NBA's
price.
With that, he folded the franchise and his days as a
pro basketball owner were done. The rest of the ABL
would implode before the conclusion of its 1962-63
season.
Even though he was operating in a cash strapped
league with little hope of succeeding, Steinbrenner
showed the same ownership traits that he would go on
to display in New York. He wasn't Big Stein yet, but
he was getting his act together.
It's fascinating to think how different the sports
world would be if Steinbrenner had been able to
become an NBA owner. I'm certain of one thing,
though: if LeBron James had played for Big Stein, he
would have been surrounded with a lot more talent
than Dan Gilbert provided.
John Stansberry is in his thirteenth season as
a senior writer for collegeinsider.com. Check out
John's blog
LonelyTailgater.com.
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