Quote Originally Posted by Zargabaath View Post
Then in 1990 the Dave Winfield controversy erupted in which George was banned for life by Commissioner Fay Vincent, however, 3 years down the road George was reinstated - 1 year after Selig took over. Why the reversal? The owners didn't want the commissioner to have too much power so they kicked out one puppet and put in another puppet. Most of us, if not all, were too young to remember but my father has said that if Bart Giamatti had been been alive George's ban would have sticked. Giamatti was the commissioner who got Pete Rose banned, though he died within the year of taking the commissioner's job, so it was Fay Vincent who was there to finalize the deal. Giammatti would not have tolerated Steinbrenner's actions as Giammatti was lining up to be a powerful commissioner that would have kept the integrity of the game.
I had no idea that Steinbrenner had actually been banned from the game but the thing that he did to Winfield, trying to dig up dirt on him was truly not right. But I was happy to see that Winfield was able to go down to Tampa and reconcile with George before he passed on. The people that interacted with him had nothing but good things to say about him and hearing that he would keep people that had helped out in the past on the payroll as "scouts" just to thank them really made me feel good.

Btw liking all the Mets fans here haha