Last night, the Yankees paid tribute to their late bombastic leader, George Steinbrenner, by unveiling a monument of him at their new stadium. And, in fitting fashion, his monument is the biggest at Memorial Park, "measuring 7 feet across and 5 feet high across its bronze face and weighing 760 pounds...With 35 square feet across its face, and looking like a wide-screen television, it dwarfs monuments to Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Manager Miller Huggins, which are 2 feet by 3 feet, or 6 square feet," according to the Bats blog.
Derek Jeter thinks the Boss, who passed away in July, would have liked it, saying it's "probably just how The Boss wanted it - it's the biggest one out there. It was probably his idea."
Besides current members of the team, former Yankees like David Wells, Reggie Jackson and Yogi Berra were on hand for the ceremony. Don Mattingly and Joe Torre, the future and departing LA Dodger managers, were also there, and Torre apparently mended his relationship with Yankees GM Brian Cashman a little. Torre said of his Yankees-blasting memoir which upset many people, "I know he was offended by some of the stuff he read in the book I anticipate that we'll certainly shake hands and hopefully be done with whatever there was that came from that being the case."
Cashman himself said, I think we've agreed to just put it behind us. We had a long, terrific run. I would put our relationship while we were working together up against any GM/manager combination in the game. We both agreed it's just not healthy. It's time to turn the page. Whatever happened on that side, it's a small sample compared to the huge sample of all the good stuff that took place." Torre also added, "When I left, that was a very dark time for me. I was hurt, and yet if you try to be rational about it, you had two parties not knowing how to say goodbye. That's what it turned out to be."
Well, Torre could be headed back to New York for all we know.
