The Daily News
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Friday, July 16th 2010, 4:00 AM
Herbert/News
Prior to her time with John Sterling in the Yankees' radio booth, Suzyn Waldman worked for WFAN, which is where her relationship with George Steinbrenner got its start.
Now, there was only time to remember.
Someone called Suzyn Waldman at 7:30 Tuesday morning and told her George Steinbrenner was dead. She took the dogs out for a walk and picked some flowers.
"And you think," she said Thursday. "You think about everything."
Except for her parents and grandfather, The Boss had as much influence on her as anybody. Right from the start. Right from the late 1980s when she landed in the world according to George M. Steinbrenner.
"I like my women to spend my money and look real pretty," Steinbrenner bellowed during their first face-to-face meeting in 1988. "I don't like them to be pilots, policemen or sports reporters."
Waldman had traveled to Tampa on her own dime to interview the Yankees' principal owner. In a letter, she convinced him she was worthy. Waldman wrote that her 5:05 p.m. WFAN "Yankees Report" was heard by more people than those who read all the metropolitan area newspapers combined ("I should be taken seriously," she wrote). Her letter made the rounds of the ladies in Steinbrenner's office. Waldman walked in a hero, only to be greeted by Steinbrenner's chauvinistic babble.
"I just looked him in the eye and said, 'I can look pretty and I can spend anybody's money,'" she said. "'But you're missing a lot of great women if you don't like women to do those kind of things."
Steinbrenner laughed.
That's how this relationship began. Early on, long before she became the Yankees radio analyst, he critiqued her work, canvassing his favorite Manhattan saloon keepers and asking: "What do you think of that girl?" In times of trouble, Steinbrenner was there. He became a coveted source, providing the kind of access and info other reporters did not normally receive.
The moniker "Georgie Girl"? That's how Waldman earned it.
She would hear Steinbrenner's laughter often.
Yet during her days working the beat on FAN, to stints in WPIX's Yankees TV booth, the short-lived Baseball Network, and YES, she was exposed to his dark side.
During a charter flight home after two exhibition games with Grambling State University, Waldman felt his irrational wrath. On this occasion, Steinbrenner wanted all players who preferred sitting in the back of the plane to sit in front. Waldman, always front and center, was looking for a seat. Don Mattingly gave her his and retired to the back of the plane. The aircraft was flying somewhere over Georgia when Steinbrenner saw Waldman and flipped.
"George comes up to me and says, 'Get out of the seat.' He actually told me to move my ass," Waldman said. "I thought he was kidding. He wasn't. He started screaming at me. I just started to cry."
"If you don't stop crying and move out of that seat you're going to be kicked off the charter," Steinbrenner fumed.
"Right now?" Waldman asked.
Steinbrenner laughed.
"There were times he didn't like what I said on the air and told me I was 'cut off' before hanging up," she said. "I would just call back and say: 'Don't hang up on me Mr. Steinbrenner.' Then I slammed the phone down. Two days later I'd call back and he'd say: 'What do you want, Waldman?'"
No matter if they were feuding, Steinbrenner was always there.
When she was being pressured during a messy divorce Waldman had nowhere to turn. She reached out to Steinbrenner. A half-hour later she had a high-powered attorney of her own. When Waldman battled breast cancer in 1996, it was Steinbrenner who reached out.
In her hotel rooms the Yankees provided a refrigerator to store the medicine she needed to inject herself. On planes there were other necessities in case she got sick. By no means were these the only times The Boss looked out for Waldman.
In 1989, Waldman was the recipient of death threats from one, or more, of the lunatic fringe. Some threats came in letters addressed to the Yankees. Steinbrenner hired off-duty NYC cops, dressed as fans, to provide security.
"I was never alone the whole season," she said, "but I never knew who they (the security guys) were."
There's a "Women In Baseball" room at the Hall of Fame. In it, Waldman is honored as a pioneer. Her microphone is there. A scorecard, too. There are pictures of her with Joe Torre and Mariano Rivera.
A few years ago Waldman took prints to the old Yankee Stadium, right up to The Boss' office. Steinbrenner was well into his twilight phase. The organization was in full protection mode. The guy at the door said he didn't know if visitors were allowed.
"He'll see me," Waldman assured before barging in.
"George, I brought you something," she said.
Waldman took out her Cooperstown pictures. She handed them to Steinbrenner. He looked at the photographs and smiled.
"See George," she said. "Look what you did for me."
Then, George Steinbrenner cried.
braissman@nydailynews.com
1 comment:
George Steinbrenner is an intense man; no doubt. Those eyes; he always looks like he's about to fire somebody, which of course, he's done with great regularity since first taking ownership of the New York Yankees in 1973. One would think that his abrasive management style would produce less than stellar results; a team in turmoil seldom succeeds.
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