{"id":639197,"date":"2026-03-23T16:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T16:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/639197\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T16:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T16:43:14","slug":"derek-jeters-final-gift-to-george-steinbrenner-and-how-yankees-family-business-changed-after-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/639197\/","title":{"rendered":"Derek Jeter’s final gift to George Steinbrenner \u2014 and how Yankees ‘family business’ changed after death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mike Vaccaro\u2019s\u00a0book, \u201cThe Bosses of the Bronx,\u201d detailing the Yankees\u2019 five-plus decades under the House of Steinbrenner, will be released by Harper\u00a0Books\u00a0March 24. You can pre-order\u00a0here<\/a>. Here is the third of three excerpts being shared with The Post:<\/p>\n

His final captain would afford George Steinbrenner the last of his endless, priceless moments \u2014 and mementos \u2014 as Boss, even if he now went by Boss Emeritus. George Steinbrenner had, after all, made the unilateral decision to install Thurman Munson as captain 45 years after Lou Gehrig\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

Steinbrenner the erstwhile Big Ten coach never could shake his football instincts and viewed captains differently, and more fondly, all of them: Graig Nettles and Willie Randolph, Ron Guidry and Don Mattingly.<\/p>\n

Now Derek Jeter.<\/p>\n

One last time, Steinbrenner made the flight to New York. Once, as a young businessman crammed into a middle seat in coach, he\u2019d sworn as his plane from Cleveland descended into LaGuardia Airport that he\u2019d one day fly first class. Now, he\u2019d made this trip thousands of times in his own jet.<\/p>\n

Mike Vaccaro\u2019s upcoming book, \u201cThe Bosses of The Bronx.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now he was three months shy of 80, and required a wheelchair. But he wasn\u2019t going to miss the home opener of the 2010 season, April 13. By now, the Boss Watch \u2014 the gaggle of reporters assigned to his Stadium comings and goings \u2014 had been abandoned; he arrived in Box 44 comfortably.<\/p>\n

Soon he was joined by two special guests.<\/p>\n

Jeter and Joe Girardi walked the forty or so steps from the Yankees clubhouse to the VIP elevator, stepped in the Boss\u2019 suite, and surprised him. They wanted to personally present his World Series ring. Jeter noticed the Boss was wearing two rings: one for the 2000 Yankees, and one an Ohio State ring.<\/p>\n

Jeter looked into Steinbrenner\u2019s eyes and laughed. \u201cBoss, take off that Ohio State ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steinbrenner\u2019s eyes brightened. He pointed at Jeter.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichigan,\u201d he said to Jeter, a son of Kalamazoo and nearly a Michigan Wolverine before the Yankees signed him out of the 1992 draft. Jeter took the 2000 ring off instead, replaced it with the 2009 one, and everyone applauded. Later, in the bottom of the third, before Jeter stepped to the plate the scoreboard camera captured Steinbrenner wearing sunglasses in his box as \u201cMy Way\u201d played over the public address system.<\/p>\n

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (l.) and wife Joan (r.) watch the team\u2019s home opener against the Angels at Yankee Stadium on April 13, 2010. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Jeter waited a respectful amount of time for the 49,293 to roar for the Boss.<\/p>\n

Then swung at the first pitch and dunked one over the wall in right-center.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us would be here, the stadium wouldn\u2019t be here, if it wasn\u2019t for him,\u201d Jeter said. \u201cHe\u2019ll always be The Boss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ninety-one days later, sitting behind a podium at the All-Star Game, Jeter had this to say about that boss: \u201cI was 18. Suddenly here he is, walking toward me, addressing me by name, and said, \u2018We expect big things from you.\u2019 I\u2019ll always remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeter was stone-faced. The news he\u2019d received he\u2019d been dreading for a long while, same as everyone around the Yankees. It might not have been stunning that George Steinbrenner died earlier that day, July 13, 2010, of a heart attack at his home in Tampa, it was still hard to immediately calibrate. He\u2019d turned 80 just nine days earlier.<\/p>\n

Derek Jeter (l.) and George Steinbrenner (r.) during spring training in 2000. New York Post<\/p>\n

After a few respectful days, it also became clear that the Boss left a remarkable legacy for his family, which you might call priceless except it absolutely had one. The federal estate tax expired the previous January, and that would\u2019ve cost the family around a half-billion dollars had the Boss passed in 2009. Had he died in 2011, the renewed law was to be upped to 55 percent, so it would\u2019ve siphoned $600 million. Without an inheritance tax the Yankees remained comfortably in the hands of his children.<\/p>\n

It was a perfect bookend for an initial investment of $168,000.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of a kind,\u201d Reggie Jackson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA life almost impossible to imagine,\u201d said his friend, Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still hate his guts,\u201d said Howie Spira, who planned on holding his grudge long into the next life and beyond.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For a brief, colorful moment, Hank Steinbrenner, George\u2019s eldest, happily morphed into his old man, into the biggest elephant in any room he walked in, trouncing those rooms with various opinions and observations before heading outside for a satisfying smoke.<\/p>\n

Hank had a lot of thoughts on a lot of things. And what quickly became apparent was that Hank was every bit the back-page goldmine his father had been \u2014 maybe more so. He was happy to hand out his cell phone number to reporters, happier to take their calls, downright gleeful at returning calls he\u2019d missed, and happiest still to fill empty notebooks with gold.<\/p>\n

(Hank really was a columnist\u2019s best friend. Once, searching for an idea on a random Tuesday, The Post\u2019s former sports editor, Greg Gallo, reached out to me. \u201cCall Hank,\u201d he said. \u201cSee what he has to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout what?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout anything,\u201d Gallo said.<\/p>\n

I called Hank, he picked up right away, and for 25 minutes he provided me that day\u2019s column, which became the next morning\u2019s back page: \u201cHANK UNPLUGGED!\u201d<\/p>\n

After we were done, as I was hammering my laptop to beat deadline, my phone rang. It was Hank. \u201cAnd a few other things \u2026\u201d and by the time he was done I had about 15 minutes left to finish the column. It ran a little long that day.)<\/p>\n

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (right) sitting with his family, (l-r); Sons Hal and Hank, daughters Jenny and Jessica. Charles Wenzelberg<\/p>\n

Hal Steinbrenner was not his brother. But Hank, who died in 2020, wearied of the spotlight\u2019s glare and happily ceded control of the Yankees to his kid brother without much of a fight, joining his sisters Jennifer and Jessica in unanimously voting Hal managing general partner in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father was more about the back pages of the tabloids,\u201d Hal said in 2013. \u201cI\u2019m more about a back room, away from prying eyes. Anyone who thinks I don\u2019t want to win? Well, how does the saying go? \u2018Show me you\u2019ve never met me without telling me that you\u2019ve never met me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Hal knows that every time the Yankees go on a five-game losing streak the familiar chorus surfaces: \u201cIf only George were still alive \u2026\u201d He also understands that fans don\u2019t want to hear about baseball\u2019s ever-shifting economic realities (and was, in fact, excoriated in some circles when he seemed to cry poverty after the Dodgers spending spree in December).<\/p>\n

Those realities happen to be true, though. When the elder Steinbrenner shocked the baseball world by authorizing (while serving the first of his two suspensions) a five-year, $3.75 million contract that temporarily made Catfish Hunter baseball\u2019s wealthiest player on New Year\u2019s Eve 1974, it felt like all the money in the world, especially for the time.<\/p>\n

But in 2026 dollars that still translates to only $25 million, which is just $2 million less than what Hal paid in 2023 alone for the services of Carlos Rod\u00f3n, a starting pitcher who went 3\u20138 with a 6.85 ERA and who never on his best day pitched as well as Hunter on his worst.<\/p>\n

The 1977 team, dubbed \u201cThe Best Team Money Could Buy?\u201d Total payroll: $3 million. In 2026 dollars: $16.1 million, or about what the Yankees will likely pay Gerrit Cole before he ever throws a pitch in a regular-season game this year.<\/p>\n

There have been various times when people wonder why the family doesn\u2019t just cash out, assuring prosperity for untold future generations of Steinbrenner, and it\u2019s a subject that makes Hal Steinbrenner laugh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Yankees,\u201d he says incredulously, \u201cis our family business.\u201d<\/p>\n

This, then, is a story about one American family business and one city\u2019s fascination with the proprietors of that corner store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mike Vaccaro\u2019s\u00a0book, \u201cThe Bosses of the Bronx,\u201d detailing the Yankees\u2019 five-plus decades under the House of Steinbrenner, will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2376],"tags":[5,6954,15374,17274,4,1690,62,2548,2547,185,142],"class_list":["post-639197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-yankees","tag-baseball","tag-derek-jeter","tag-george-steinbrenner","tag-hal-steinbrenner","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkyankees","tag-sports","tag-yankees"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116279496144958735","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}