If there’s one thing Paul O’Neill will always take from his time playing for George Steinbrenner, it’s this: The late Yankees owner knew how to win.
“That’s what Mr. Steinbrenner was all about: about the tradition of winning,” O’Neill said in an interview yesterday on FOX News Channel’s Studio B with Shepard Smith. “He expected us to win, whether it was Spring training . . . whether it was the World Series.
“I never had an owner where I felt like he was on the same page. But Mr. Steinbrenner was.”
When O’Neill arrived in The Bronx from Cincinnati in 1993, he knew things would be different — because of Steinbrenner.
“That’s one thing that I’m kind of upset about,” O’Neill said on the MLB Network, “that he didn’t kind of get his just due in that way until the last couple years when his health started failing.”
As the Yankees won four world titles from 1996-2000, the Boss was always around.
“He would show up or walk through the clubhouse and make sure that he was seen . . . It almost gave you kind of a shot of adrenaline that this is a big game, this is a must-win,” O’Neill said. “But on the other hand, I can remember him going up to Chuck Knoblauch . . . [after a loss] and telling him, ‘We’ll get through this.’ ”
O’Neill expects The Boss’ legacy to live on.
“This tradition he has set forth for the Yankees,” he said on FOX News Channel, “will continue.”
Additional reporting
by Mark Hale