Major League Baseball team owner. He was the owner of the New York Yankees Major League baseball team from 1973 until his death in 2010. After service in the United States Air Force (where he served as a 2nd Lieutenant), he joined his father's shipping company, which operated on the Great Lakes out of Cleveland, Ohio. Becoming a wealthy businessman, his interest in sports ownership started with his purchase of the American Basketball League team Cleveland Pipers. As owner, he hired the first African-American to coach professional basketball, John McClendon. The team folded after a year, and he then invested in Broadway plays. In 1973 he and a group of minority investors bought the Yankees from William S. Paley and the Columbia Broadcasting Corporation, which had been trying to sell the team since 1965 when the Yankees finally lost power in the American League. George Steinbrenner then infused a team that had a decade of little success with a new direction and uncompromising focus on winning, which he and fans had seen as part of the long Yankee tradition that had fallen by the wayside under CBS ownership. He authorized the payment of large salaries to top free agents, and he rewarded exceptional homegrown talent with long-term deals to keep a consistent winning structure and mentality in the organization. This formula paid off for the Yankees, as they 11 won American League Pennants and 7 World Series championships (1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2009). His ability to pay more money than many other teams for talent and his willingness to do so sparked much criticism during his tenure, but the criticism never changed the way he directed his team to do business. With his health failing, he transferred the day-to-day control of the team to his sons in 2006. George was feted triumphantly at the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, which was held at the original Yankee Stadium. Soon after his 80th birthday in 2010 and two days after long-time Yankee Stadium announcer Bob Sheppard's death, he died of a heart attack in Tampa, Florida at age 80.