Ten years ago they were bigtime winners and looked the part. Ted Turner was the embodiment of a swinging, swaggering billionaire with ideas springing from his brain like coins falling from the pockets of a pair of pants hung upside-down. His all news channel, CNN, was prospering and when he made a speech, everyone leaned forward and listened intently. 

Nobody broke up. 

And ten years ago, George Steinbrenner beamed as the Joe Torre era began, and the Yankees, no longer the Bronx Zoo curated by Billy Martin, started to run the table of playoffs and World Series. The Boss had a sign put up in his office: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way. And when he spoke, everyone trembled. 

Nobody chortled. 

Nowadays, Ted Turner makes a speech equating Israel’s self defense and Palestinian suicide bombers (“That’s all they have”) and yawns punctuate his bombinations. Last week he spoke of the American flag. In his opinion Old Glory should not be in the background when the news is being broadcast. Translation: Strict neutrality should be observed; the North Korean flag shouldn’t be there either. 

The mockery has yet to subside. 

Especially at Fox News, which regularly cleans CNN’s clock. No wonder its staffers are delighted every time Turner finds room in his mouth for a boot or two.  The reasons for Fox’s success are quite clear: they are not insipid, their anchors are not full of self-important pieties, and their founder does not make a fool of himself at every inopportunity. 

As for Steinbrenner, he might as well wear a garment reading “I Spent $213 Million And All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt.”  

According to The Boss, even though his NY Yankees won 96 games in the regular season, they were beaten in the post season by the Detroit Tigers and therefore constituted “a sad failure”in his eyes.

The best team loot could buy bombed bigtime for reasons that are quite clear. Merely purchasing the contract of a player, demanding that he shave his beard (Johnny Damon), or that he play a position that is not the one he was trained for (Alex Rodriguez, Gary Sheffield) or that he miraculously return to his youthful self (Mike Messina, Randy Johnson) is not the key to victory.

But it is the key to hilarity on the part of Yankee haters and Mets fans.  

So these two bigtime losers, Turner and Steinbrenner are not entirely without their merits. In these days of depressing headlines and political smears, laughing matter is hard to find. 

Thank you, gentlemen. 

 

 

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