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Has Boss Vader left his evil empire to play bingo in Boca Raton

Excerpt from David Kiley's blog post yesterday on Businessweek.com http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/brandnewday/archives/2007/10/steinbrenner_a.html

The Yankees lost their series to Cleveland. Lots of Yankee haters are happy. Yankee fans are disgusted. Whether or not the fans blame the pitching, Alex Rodriguez's quiet bat, Joe Torre or general manager Brian Cashman, one thing is certain. Yankee owner George Steinbrenner somewhere along the way totally lost sight of his own brand.

I'm not talking about the Yankee brand, but the Steinbrenner brand. Time was that "Big Stein," as he was known on Seinfeld, defined the image of an executive who was bold, risk-taking, brash, a doer.

Has the Boss, George Steinbrenner, finally lost his dramatic will and flair? Is the "CEO" of the most historic franchise in all of sports beginning to move away from his responsibilities and public appearances ?The next few days will play a large part in answering these question, as we await news on whether Joe Torre will avoid the guillotine and get invited back as the Yankee manager.

In the past, outspoken and outrageous George would have most certainly fired (and maybe re-hired once or twice) Torre at the end of one of the last few seasons which ended in failure, or at least early this season when the team was 15 games behind Boston. New old and withdrawn looking George of today gets convinced to keep Torre through early season disappointment and post-season-failure before issuing a meek-sounding "beat Cleveland or be gone" once the Yankees were already down two games in last week’s playoff series defeat.

Now, if I was CEO of a well established company, which had an unprecedented run of success in the late nineties under the leadership of a calming father-figure like senior manager (or COO, President), and then we came back towards the pack for the past several years, I would handle things a quite differently.

Instead of living by the edict of "World Series or failure" which determines the success or failure of the Steinbrenner/Yankees brand each year, I would instead use an even simpler concept to get my message through: EVOLVE OR DISSOLVE.

Simply put today's winning ways could be tomorrow's old news and therefore adaptation to your environment is the key to enduring success. So, though my company was successful in the nineties using a internet-research heavy approach to business, we would have needed to adjust our approach and expand our methods of operations in order to keep up our competitive advantage in today's internet savvy world.

Similarly, though no one can deny the success that: a) the Yankees had during their championship run, which was fueled by an "anyone-can-be-brought-in-at-any-cost" approach, and b) Joe Torre had with his "I'm your friend" attitude to coaching and management (reminiscent of Boston manager John McNamara leaving Bill Buckner, an tremendous defensive liability, at first base in the '86 World Series in order to "honor" the veteran leader by keeping him on the field for the imminent championship celebration), it seems evident from our more recent results that change is necessary and probably a few years overdue in order to bring back the World Series trophy to the Bronx.

Again, I would be rather uncomfortable if the brand I put my life into building up slowly crawled to mediocrity in this manner. it makes me wonder if Mr. Steinbrenner has simply lost the will or ability to continue fighting.

New York City Councilman James Oddo may have had a meltdown!

FOX NEWS reports on James Oddo

NEW YORK — New York City Councilman James Oddo may have had a meltdown during his first experience with gotcha satire media, but he wasn’t about to go down without a fight.

Dropping the “f-word” no fewer than 16 times in the course of what has become a popular You Tube video, Republican Oddo became irate when he realized the attractive, seemingly harmless young reporter who sat before him last week for an interview in his office was really a comedienne of note for the Norwegian program "Rickets Rost," a sort of Scandinavian "Daily Show w/Jon Stewart."

Click here to see the YouTube video. Warning: contains offensive



The video of James Oddo , which garnered more than 44,174 hits on YouTube as of midday Wednesday, shows Oddo exploding at reporter Pia Haraldsen, 26, after she asked whether Obama could legally run for office because he is African American, and about Hillary’s “cigar,” an obvious reference to President Bill Clinton’s scandal-ridden affair with intern Monica Lewinsky.

James Oddo blasted the woman, telling her repeatedly to “get the f—ck out of my office,” at one time telling her he would beat “the sh—t” out of them if she and her camera crew didn’t get out fast enough.

Oddo, who is up for borough president as a representative of both Staten Island in 2009, was unapologetic in a follow-up interview with FOX News.
Anyone who thinks they are going to come in and waste time while mocking him and other American leaders like the Clintons, while implicitly saying “America is a racist nation ... I’m going to throw you out of my office,” Oddo said. He apparently did apologize to his mother for the curse words James Oddo was upset.

The city councilman was somewhat more introspective in a NY1 cable news television interview.
Click here to read the NY1 article.


“My language was inappropriate, I'm apologetic for it, I regret it,” said Oddo. “I don't regret the sentiment. In fact, I think that people across the country will see that I reacted the same way any Staten Islander walking down Hylan Boulevard would have reacted.”

James Oddo Tried to talk to us but we didnt want to listen.

"It could be hurtful in that everyone expects their representatives to be civil. However, it is tough to be civil when you’re being set up,” Democratic consultant and lobbyist George Artz told the newspaper. “This is such a miniscule issue. It won’t affect anybody, and he was scammed.”
Others have suggested the video celebrity will boost his image with no-nonsense New Yorkers.
For her part, Haraldsen, 26, seemed unruffled and even jazzed by the interview and the media attention she was getting for it.
When asked by FOX News in an on-air phone interview on Wednesday, the “reporter” said she was used to angry responses, and in the case of Oddo thought it was an attractive character trait.
“I think Mr. Oddo’s reaction was quite normal and I’ve always been fond of men with a temperament,” the heavily-accented Haraldsen said, adding that she wouldn’t mind having Oddo as a “rumba and salsa” partner on "Dancing with the Stars," a reference that indicates she is perhaps more of an American celebrity-seeker than an Ali G protégé.

James Oddo