GQ has a great interview with son of Stein, Hal Steinbrenner. They talk about a bunch of topics, including Brian Cashman, his father George, the kids, and the recent Santana happenings.
Here’s a nice excerpt from the text:
Your dad had a council of advisers, all of whom were coequal, but he unilaterally set the team’s course. Do you think the team is going to be more hierarchical going forward?
I’m going to sound like a military-school guy, but I’m a big believer in chain of command. Under George, I think a lot of people felt like George was going to make the decision, no matter what, and they just didn’t make many decisions. The direction that we’re moving toward is more along the lines of how I think an efficient corporation should run. It doesn’t mean I’m right, but that’s my take. I don’t want to have to be here twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, analyzing every single piece of information that comes across the desk and feeling like I need to make decisions that other people are perfectly capable of making.We understand this is New York. We understand winning is expected. We want to win. Even if that wasn’t the case, we would want to win; that’s just the way we are. But I think we’re both more introverted and more analytical. We tend to want to take time to come up with a solution to a problem, as opposed to making a seat-of-the-pants–type decision. And I think that showed in some of these off-season signings. Some people didn’t understand why we took so long to decide this or to decide that, but we want to get it right.
Good to know. The Yankees are also more of a business now and that mentality has definitely seeped into the sport. Therefore, carefully analyzed decisions that travel through a chain of command, really makes sense in the economic world of baseball.
Check out the entire article. It’s a good read and gives you a better understanding of the Yankee front office (and the relationship between Hank and Hal, as business partners).
