The bully as winner: R.I.P. "The Boss"

To quote football coach Vince Lombardi, “Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.� Another coach, George Allen, expressed the idea a bit differently: “Every time you lose, you die a little.� Together, these quips characterize the ethic embraced by and embodied by “The Boss,� as George Steinbrenner was labeled by the media.

The amount of praise heaped on the late Yankee owner has been, in my view, inordinate, and raises questions about Americans’ love for winning at all costs, love for bullies, and love for those who make a lot of money.

In the name of winning, Steinbrenner bullied everyone around him — managers, coaches, players, family; in the name of winning he committed crimes (and was convicted for committing some of them); in the name of winning he just about stole $1.5 billion from the public coffers to build a stadium that benefited only his privately owned team. When you next read a news report about how New York state schoolchildren have to do without a textbook or a music class because of budget shortfalls, place some of the blame at the foot of Steinbrenner and the owners of other New York-based professional sports teams who wrung money from public entities, tax and bond receipts that could have been put to much better public uses.

America loves winners and forgives them their trespasses.  Because George Steinbrenner’s team won championships during his time of ownership, he was celebrated instead of vilified.  He accepted this praise-for-winning as his due; and — true to form — when his team lost, he would inform audiences that it was not his fault but the fault of others, and pledge to fire people until things turned around.  If they didn’t immediately turn around, he’d do even worse things.

Nothing so aptly characterized Steinbrenner as his pursuit of star player Dave Winfield, one of the first players to start his own foundation. When Steinbrenner berated Winfield publicly, Winfield fought back, and — for a short time— the baseball writers loved it. Outraged, Steinbrenner hired a shady operator to find dirt on Winfield’s foundation that could discredit him. None could be found, and the shady operator told the world about that. Steinbrenner’s attempt to hurt Winfield in this way led to his second suspension by the commissioner of baseball.

The problem is beyond Steinbrenner, of course: it is that the winning-is-everything ethic of professional sports has seeped into the rest of American life, has spread throughout the rest of society, infecting areas where it was not found 50 years ago, and has reformed society in its own image. We adore winners — that is a natural thing — but we now overly denigrate losers in amateur sports, in elections, in retailers of cars, soaps, and education, and in the race to capture the myriad manufactured goods of the capitalist system. A while ago we used to admire lost causes, but we don’t do that anymore, because we find nothing to be “nobleâ€� or “valorousâ€� or “dignifiedâ€� if it is associated with a losing proposition, team, candidate, or individual.  We demonize the poor because they are losers.

We love millionaires because they are winners – even if some of them are quite despicable.   That is a consequence of being a capitalist society, I suppose; but one can admire a millionaire’s ability to make money without having to admire his or her ethics, morals, or tactics.  Steinbrenner was praised for his behind-the-scenes charitable endeavors; actually, those contributions were meager, amounting to only a small fraction of his fortune.  

Does embracing winning-is-everything mandate our love of bullies? I’m not sure, but the public certainly did forgive Steinbrenner for bullying so long as he was winning. 

Bullying is an absolute wrong; as every parent knows, we who are powerful in relation to others can enforce that power without humiliating the other person, if we care enough (about them) to do so. Bullies are sadists and, for the most part, cowards. You don’t find stories of Medal of Honor winners who habitually bullied their subordinates.  To celebrate a bully is to encourage him to episodes of greater sadism.

In the past, we as a society disliked bullies; our Westerns were full of men who fought bullies and won, to the audience’s applause. Now we prefer bullies.   “Reality televisionâ€� is full of bullies and humiliation, and — Nielsen reports reveal — we like humiliation as entertainment.   

No wonder, then, that there is so much public mourning for Steinbrenner.

 Tom Shachtman has written books on a wide range of topics. He lives in Salisbury.