Life's Pleasures Quote by George Steinbrenner

Steinbrenner is doing what he did best: wrapping raw self-interest in the language of institutional stewardship. He opens with a pious question about "the best interest of baseball", as if he’s auditioning for the commissioner’s office, then answers himself with a blunt "Probably not" that signals both common sense and impatience. It’s a classic owner move - invoke the sanctity of the game to justify a change that, conveniently, protects your product and your margins. Beer in the ninth inning isn’t just a public-safety issue; it’s a liability issue, a reputation issue, and a "don’t turn my ballpark into a tabloid" issue.

The real target, though, isn’t alcohol. It’s authority. "The rule has got to be more clearly defined" reads like a procedural complaint, but it’s a power play: ambiguity is where executives and commissioners can make ad hoc decisions that owners can’t predict or control. Steinbrenner is arguing for guardrails not because he loves rules, but because he hates being surprised by them.

Then comes the punch: "the judge is not also the appeals judge". That’s a populist framing of governance as fairness - due process, separation of powers, accountability. Subtext: the league’s disciplinary machinery is too centralized, too insulated, too capable of humiliating rich men in public with no meaningful recourse. In the late-20th-century MLB context - where commissioners could discipline owners and players while also controlling the appeal process - Steinbrenner is staking out a businessman’s definition of justice: not moral clarity, but a system you can litigate, negotiate, and, ideally, win.