Stinbrenner Really Was Just Another Hustler

[Yeahyeah]

Roldo Bartimole

July 14, 2010

http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/14196

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Steinbrenner was a man on the make in the 1960s. He started one of those young executive groups called Group 66. Its aim supposedly was to help the city. Mostly, they’re made up of strivers who want to grab some power. As these types do they try to ingratiate themselves with the media as you’ll see below.

In June 1973 I wrote about a poll that the Plain Dealer played big on Page one as a “Democratic poll.” It turned out the Steinbrenner, supposedly a Democrat, secretly paid for the poll. The poll said that Mayor Ralph Perk was unbeatable. Steinbrenner had built a relationship with Richard Nixon to get the U. S. Justice Department off his back at his shipping company. A Democratic bigwig said at the time that the leaked poll “looks like some of the methods used by the Committee to Re-Elect the President,” Nixon’s fated campaign group.

Steinbrenner – who I described then as someone “with the appearance of an overstuffed chair about to pop”- was part of a nasty nest of business characters that had too much power over city officials and wanted more. Some are still here.

It was Steinbrenner’s “report” that led to Browns owner Art Modell obtaining a 25 year city lease on the Cleveland Stadium. Steinbrenner’s reported, “We recognize that these improvements would be costly but they would result in a stadium facility of which both the city and tenants could be proud. The involvement of private management and capital would relieve the taxpayer of the burden (ha!) – present and future – and, at the same time, assure them of a first class facility.” The (ha!) was in my original report. For years I showed how Modell made out very well in the stadium deal.>>>

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1. I don't know who Stinbrenner was?

but Larry David probably could have covered him too.