On July 30, 1990, MLB commissioner Fay Vincent "banned" George Steinbrenner from baseball and brought a close to one of the more sordid chapters in the sport's history. Steinbrenner had paid $40,000 to Howie Spira, a Bronx gambler with mafia ties, for dirt on Yankees outfielder Dave Winfield, with whom Steinbrenner had long feuded in and out of court. (You can read about the seamy episode here.) Vincent determined that Steinbrenner's behavior ran against "the best interests of Baseball," not to mention a few tenets of human decency:
"[I]t did not occur to [Steinbrenner] during this sorry period that what he was doing could run afoul of the rules of Baseball. In essence, he heard no internal warning because none went off. … I must be mindful of the importance of focusing Mr. Steinbrenner on his obligations to be more sensitive to the best interests of Baseball…."
That's what Vincent wrote in his decision, a copy of which is attached to the bottom of this post, along with some other rarely seen documents concerning Steinbrenner's ouster from baseball.
