Steve Swindal and George Steinbrenner’s daughter, Jennifer, are ending their twenty-three year marriage. Jennifer filed for divorce yesterday in Florida, citing irreconcilable differences. This is obviously tragic as a family is breaking up. On a much less important note, this is also bad news for the Yankees.
Steinbrenner named Swindal as his heir back in 2005. Due to this divorce, that probably has changed. Swindal was a voice of reason within the organization. George Steinbrenner has only thought in the short term since he took over the team. He has favored headline-grabbing acquisitions and ignoring building a balanced and deep team. Swindal had a lot of influence with his father-in-law and used it to get Brian Cashman more say. Cashman has done a great job building a deep club and farm system that is more cost-effective. Steve Swindal would have been a great owner. He understood that the best teams are built by trusting competent baseball men to make sound personnel moves, not by building a rotisserie team. Now the future of the franchise is unclear. The team might go to one of Steinbrenner’s sons, who reportedly are a lot like him in philosophy. The team also could be sold in which case it is impossible to tell who could end up with the team. One shudders when considering the ways in which a family like the Dolans would run this franchise into the ground now that they have completed that task with the Knicks and Rangers.
