He was the longest-serving owner in club history, and the Yankees won seven World Series championships and 11 American League pennants under his ownership.

[2] His father was of German descent[3][4] and was a world-class track and field hurdler while at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he graduated in engineering in 1927, first in his class and a distinguished scholar in naval architecture.

In its return to profitability, Kinsman emphasized grain shipments over ore.[11] A few years later, with the help of a loan from a New York bank, Steinbrenner purchased the company from his family.

Whereas Nederlander threw himself into his family's business full-time, Steinbrenner invested in a mere half-dozen shows, including the 1974 Tony Award nominee for Best Musical, Seesaw, and the 1988 Peter Allen flop, Legs Diamond.

In 1972, CBS chairman William S. Paley told team president E. Michael Burke the media company intended to sell the club.

On January 3, 1973, Steinbrenner and minority partner Burke led a group of investors, which included Nederlander, Lester Crown, John DeLorean, Nelson Bunker Hunt, and Marvin L. Warner, in purchasing the Yankees from CBS.

But Burke later became angry when he found out that Paul had been brought in as a senior Yankee executive, reducing his authority, and quit the team presidency in April 1973.

The 1973 off-season would continue to be controversial when Steinbrenner and Paul fought to hire former Oakland Athletics manager Dick Williams, who had resigned immediately after leading the team to its second straight World Series title.

[29][30] During the 1973 home opener against the Cleveland Indians, as the Yankees, caps removed, were standing at attention for the National Anthem, Steinbrenner, in the owner's box next to the New York dugout, noticed that several players' hair was too long for his standards.

As he did not yet know the players' names, he wrote down the uniform numbers of the offenders (Thurman Munson, Bobby Murcer, and Sparky Lyle), and had the list, along with the demand that their hair be trimmed immediately, delivered to Houk.

After contending only briefly two years earlier, the 1993 Yankees were in the American League East race with the eventual champion Toronto Blue Jays until September.

Three days after firing Showalter on October 31, rankled by the angry responses by fans, he attempted to woo him back (while presumably moving Joe Torre to a desk job rather than the manager position).

Associates and family members refused to comment on rampant speculation concerning his declining health, specifically rumors that he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

[49] On April 13, 2010, Derek Jeter and Joe Girardi privately presented the first 2009 World Series Championship ring to Steinbrenner in his stadium suite.

[52] On July 13, 2010, the morning of the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, Steinbrenner died of a heart attack at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa, Florida.

Prior to the game, the team presented a mural above the right-center field bleachers in the late owner's honor while closer Mariano Rivera laid a bouquet of flowers on home plate.

"[58] Former sportscaster Hank Greenwald, who called Yankee games on WABC radio for two years, once said he knew when Steinbrenner was in town by how tense the office staff was.

[66] At his residence in Tampa, Steinbrenner supported numerous individuals and charities including the Boys and Girls Club as well as the Salvation Army.

[67] Mel Stottlemyre recalled that during his myeloma cancer treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital he had mentioned in passing to Steinbrenner how he regretted not being able to watch Yankee games from his room.

The comment resulted in Martin's first departure, though officially he resigned (tearfully), before Yankees President Al Rosen could carry out Steinbrenner's dictum to fire him.

[76] Faced with a cost overrun problem with the United States Commerce Department, Steinbrenner gave six of his American Shipbuilding employees "special bonuses" of $25,000 and directed them to then turn around and personally donate the funds to Nixon's Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP).

[79][80] On July 30, 1990, Steinbrenner was banned permanently from day-to-day management (but not ownership) of the Yankees by MLB Commissioner Fay Vincent for paying a gambler named Howard Spira $40,000 to dig up "dirt" on Winfield.

[85] In 1988, he was featured heavily in the William Goldman and Mike Lupica book Wait Till Next Year which looked at life inside the Yankees over a whole season (among other New York sports teams).

Steinbrenner hosted Saturday Night Live (SNL) on October 20, 1990, at the same time his former outfielder and Yankee manager, Lou Piniella, led the Cincinnati Reds to a World Series victory.

In other sketches, he chewed out the SNL "writing staff" (notably including Al Franken) for featuring him in a mock Slim Fast commercial with other ruthless leaders such as Saddam Hussein and Idi Amin and played a folksy convenience store manager whose business ethic is virtually the complete opposite of that of the real Steinbrenner.

[clarification needed] In the 1994 computer game Superhero League of Hoboken, one of the schemes of the primary antagonist, Dr. Entropy, is to resurrect George Steinbrenner to bring chaos to the world and rule together.

In December 1990, Steinbrenner made another appearance on WWF TV in the front row during a Superstars of Wrestling taping held in Tampa's SunDome.

At the funeral of his long-time friend Otto Graham in December 2003, Steinbrenner fainted, leading to extensive media speculation that he was in ill health.

[89] New York Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo often cited Steinbrenner's German heritage by drawing him in a Prussian military uniform, complete with spiked helmet, gold epaulettes and medals, calling him "General von Steingrabber".

The character appeared in the episodes "The Opposite", "The Secretary", "The Race", "The Jimmy", "The Wink", "The Hot Tub", "The Caddy", "The Calzone", "The Bottle Deposit", "The Nap", "The Millennium", "The Muffin Tops", and "The Finale".