By RICK MILLER
Olean Star
ST. BONAVENTURE — New York Post Lead Sports Columnist Mike Vaccaro regaled Yankees fans with stories of the Steinbrenner dynasty of the 1980s and 90s during a stop at St. Bonaventure University Wednesday on his book tour promoting “The Bosses of the Bronx.”
The ‘89 St. Bonaventure alumnus joined retired ESPM executive and longtime friend Chris LaPlaca, a 1979 graduate of St. Bonaventure is a question and answer session at Walsh Auditorium.
Vaccaro, who once covered the Bonnies for the Olean Times Herald, has been lead sports columnist for the Post since 2002.
He told LaPlaca that he decided to write the book because there are many people alive today who don’t remember George Steinbrenner, the Yankees owner who was banned from daily operation of the team from 1990-93 for hiring a gambler to dig up dirt on player Dave Winfield.
After his reinstatement by Major League Baseball, Steinbrenner became less involved with daily operations, but remained a principal owner. In 2008, he transferred his interests to his sons Hal and Hank Steinbrenner. He died in 2010
LaPlaca wondered if Steinbrenner could pull off in modern times what he accomplished with the Yankees and his battles with New York media.
The controversial Steinbrenner “would be a consumer of social media to get his message out quicker,” Vaccaro opined.
Social media today is the equivalent of the New York media wars of the 1980s, which still exists between the Post and New York Daily News.
In other years before cellphones, Vaccaro said, sports reporters who telephoned and left messages for Steinbrenner had to wait for the call to be returned. He said his first call from the Yankees owner came at 3:30 a.m.
Good, bad or crazy, Steinbrenner “was usually pretty truthful with me,” he said. “He never lied to me. Toward the end, he started handing things off to his sons.” Vaccaro interviewed Hal Steinbrenner for the book. Hank Steinbrenner died in 2020.
Among the stories Vaccaro related to the audience of more than 50 mostly Yankees fans, was the relationship between Steinbrenner and manager Billy Martin who was fired four times by the Yankees owner. Once Martin was fired in 1978 just before he and Steinbrenner appeared in a Miller Lite commercial.
Just before the first time Martin was fired, the Daily News published a poll that showed 99% of respondents wanted Steinbrenner to hit the bricks.
Vaccaro said in response to one question from the audience that while it can be “very intimidating,” sifting through all the information you’ve gathered from interviews and research, “you do a little bit every day. It’s what I do for a living. I’m pretty confident everything in the book happened.”
Another audience question involved discrimination of women sportswriters.
Vaccaro said ” Women sportswriters “are more commonplace” today and “most of the original battles have been won.” Most athletes these days “grew up with women sportswriters,” he said. “People are more used to it now.” He said he was particularly impressed with his “older friends in the business who stood up for female writers.”
Vaccaro said he doesn’t come across a lot of that kind of discrimination these days.
After the audience question and answer session was over, Vaccaro met with audience members who had bought the book and talked to them while he signed their books.
Later in the afternoon, Vaccaro held another book signing at Untold Stories bookstore, 700 W. State St.
Published by HarperCollins, “The Bosses of the Bronx” debuted at No. 14 last week on the New York Times Best Seller list.
