apbr.org

[Gordon Long]

George Steinbrenner passed away this morning in Florida. Not surprisingly there has not been a lot of mention of his ownership of the Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League of the 1960s.

The New York Times had a three page article about him but only one sentence about the Pipers, in the middle of the second page.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/sports/baseball/14steinbrenner.html

Baseball America also has a sentence about having multiple national champions in the National Industrial and American Basketball Leagues.
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/articles/george_steinbrenner_biography.shtml

The best article so far that I have seen is from the Cleveland Plain-Dealer's online affiliate, cleveland.com. It actually has four paragraphs and nine sentences about the Piper's history and his ownership of them.
http://www.cleveland.com/ohio-sports-blog/index.ssf/2010/07/post_120.html

Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything else yet. I'm sure that sooner or later some enterprising blogger or columnist will 'discover' Steinbrenner's ownership and his attempt to join the NBA, and wonder what if...would he have been the same kind of owner in the NBA as he was for the New York Yankees?

[rlee]

We've had several posts in the past regarding this, including this one:

"Mike Cleary was the general manager of the Pipers when McLendon was hired on June 30, 1959. Pipers owner Ed Sweeny hired McLendon, whose innovative up-tempo running style was working to perfection as Tennessee A&I [now Tennessee State].

After winning an NIBL title, the Pipers were sold to a group of investors headed by George Steinbrenner in the new American Basketball League. Cleary likes to point out that he was the first employee ever fired by Steinbrenner, over a newspaper leak, with McLendon the second one fired, one of the few times in his life when that happened to him.

McLendon raised King George's ire when he let the media know Steinbrenner had missed the player payroll. McLendon gave up the coaching reins in January 1962, and Bill Sharman coached the Pipers to the title in the ABL's lone season.

As McLendon liked to say about Steinbrenner: "He treats us all the same. Like dogs."

With the Pipers, McLendon brought Dick Barnett, Ben Warley, John Barnhill and Ron Hamilton from Tennessee A&I to integrate the team with southern white players such as Gene Tormohlen from Tennessee and Johnny Cox from Kentucky.

Before winning the 1960-61 NIBL and National AAU titles, the Pipers handed the 1960 U.S. Olympic Team the only loss it ever suffered. That was a 101-96 overtime affair on Aug. 6, 1960, in Canton. The Olympians had Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Walt Bellamy and Terry Dischinger.

"John coached well in advance of a game," said Hamilton, 71, now retired from a publishing company in Chicago. "It was all about conditioning. We'd run and run and run. Before a game, he would tell us what we had to do to win. He'd tell us to get our act together, say Come follow me,' and walk out. Then we'd go out and play . . . ."
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein

[rlee]

from SIVault.com
http://157.166.255.4/vault/article/magazine/MAG1073814/2/index.htm


Why I Am Turning Pro
The best college basketball player of his day (and SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S Sportsman of the Year), Jerry Lucas has now made up his mind about his future. In this exclusive article he announces his decision—and explains it
Jerry Lucas
For a long time I have publicly said and personally believed that I would never play professional basketball. As the past season at Ohio State ended I was all the more convinced that I could not further my educational development or career goals by becoming a professional athlete. I felt that all any professional team would or could offer me was money—a big lump of money to be sure, but just money—and that they would have no interest in my education, my off-court future or in helping me achieve some of the many aims that are quite important to me. Now I have received a far different kind of offer from the Cleveland Pipers of the American Basketball League, and I am accepting it. I am signing a contract, and will play for Cleveland for two years.

This decision comes after five of the most difficult months of my life. Everywhere I went people were asking me, "What are you going to do, Jerry, what are you going to do?" Since the season ended, the phone has been ringing incessantly. Wire services, reporters, friends, all asking the same thing. Lately my wife Treva and I have had to leave the phone off the hook at night.

I told everyone that I would be willing to listen to representatives of the professional teams that drafted me, Cleveland and the Cincinnati Royals of the National Basketball Association. But my attitude had not changed. NBA teams play as many as 116 games a year. The season is six months. You hopscotch your way endlessly around the country. My friends in the league had told me it was murder, mentally and physically. I have never wanted to live like that. I still don't.

My first real contact with the professional aspects of basketball came the week we lost the NCAA basketball championship to Cincinnati. Abe Saperstein, commissioner of the ABL, offered me $10,000 to play for two weeks on a team that would barnstorm against his Harlem Globetrotters. I told him no, because I already had another commitment that could not be changed. It was something I wanted badly to do—to make a series of banquet talks at schools in the Ohio area. I ended up scheduling 50 talks in as many days, as well as playing an exhibition series with some of my Ohio State teammates.

First earnings

Though I had to drop out of school for a quarter to do this, I made several thousand dollars. For the first time Treva and I had some cash. She wanted a new bedroom suite. "O.K.," I said. "But after that the lid goes on the bank account again."

Two weeks after I turned down Mr. Saperstein I had a meeting with Pepper Wilson, general manager of the Cincinnati Royals. He made an offer. It was a three-year contract, and I can't disclose the amount. [ Ohio rumors place the figure at about $100,000.—ED.] That was it. Just that lump of money, which would not last too long, especially when you consider taxes. What's more, I would not be able to finish at Ohio State in the near future. I now had two quarters to complete before getting a degree. I could not graduate until December, and the NBA season starts much earlier. Nor did the Royals have any specific thoughts or suggestions about my future. I told Mr. Wilson that this was not the kind of contract I was interested in.

Shortly after that George Steinbrenner, the president of the Pipers, contacted me through Joe J. Hardy, a Columbus man who advises me, and a meeting was set. Mr. Steinbrenner arrived carrying briefcases filled with reasons why I should sign with Cleveland. There was a maroon folder with page after page analyzing my future there. There was a chart showing what Piper attendance was expected to be if I played, what that made me worth and, therefore, how much 1 might logically be offered. There was a report that regional television was a certainty and an ABL national TV package an excellent possibility if I signed. There was also a Piper balance sheet. "You should have the facts," Mr. Steinbrenner said. The facts showed the Pipers lost $170,000 last season.

He told me the group he heads, made up of 17 Cleveland businessmen, bought the Pipers in 1960 largely because they hoped to sign me, and they had been working since with that goal in mind. He said he had insisted when the Pipers joined the ABL that their territorial draft area must be all of Ohio and that each team should get two territorial picks. You see, they also wanted Havlicek. [Teammate and fellow All-America John Havlicek probably will join Lucas at Cleveland.—ED.] "If we don't sign you," Mr. Steinbrenner said, "I doubt we will keep the franchise."

The Pipers had carefully studied my objections to professional basketball. They came armed with answers. Mr. Steinbrenner began at once that first day talking about education. He knew Ohio State representatives had done that four years ago, and that had been the reason I had selected OSU over 150 other schools. He said the ABL schedule had been cut to about 70 games—at his suggestion—and would not open until December. Therefore I could finish school. He offered a two-year contract instead of three. After two years, he said, the club would see that my way was paid through the graduate school of my choice. He said I wasn't expected to play more than two years. He offered what amounted to a portfolio of stocks and investments that virtually assured me an income for years. Some of these were with firms that were also interested in hiring me on a career basis, once I stopped playing basketball.


The present value of the investments is about $40,000. My salary with the Pipers will be roughly $10,000 a season. This adds up to much less than the Cincinnati offer. But to me it is much more in long-range terms.

After a delay of a week—Mr. Steinbrenner is vice-president of a shipping company, and one of his boilers blew up—Treva and I went to Cleveland for a second discussion with the Pipers. We met some influential Cleveland businessmen. We were taken to the Cleveland Athletic Club with the thought that we might want to join, and finally we were even shown some apartments that we might like. I hadn't said yes, yet. But Treva apparently had. She picked out an apartment.

I am very surprised that the Pipers came up with such an offer. But they had concerned themselves with the things that concerned me. They had answered all my objections to professional basketball. They had managed to do the only thing that could have made me change my mind. Late last week I decided to accept their offer.

That is the story behind the most important personal decision I have ever made. But it does not include one of the biggest factors of all.

In the past two years I have come to understand the responsibility that goes with being a public figure. I can't say I started off to build any kind of image, but it happened. Everywhere I have gone to talk in the past six weeks parents have come up to me and said how they tell their little boy he should grow up to be like Jerry Lucas. It is the best thing to come out of my athletic career, this possibility that I can, and have, set a good example for youngsters. I feel very strongly about teaching and leading children, so I was left with conflicting ideas about turning professional.

On the one hand, I felt I should not, because you can set an example for children by showing them that there are many more important things than money. On the other hand, I have come to realize how quickly I would be out of the public eye if I did not continue my athletic career, and how I would consequently be less able to achieve many of the things with youth and youth organizations that I hope to.

I thought a great deal about the situation, and I knew that I would disappoint a great number of people no matter what I did. Finally, I decided last weekend that it would be best if I played basketball a little longer, while trying to present the same image as a professional athlete that I did as an amateur.
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein

[rlee]

The American Basketball League tried hard all season to put itself in the category of a major professional league and then just about nullified the few good notices it had by the way it conducted its championship playoff. For one thing, the third game of the final series between the Kansas City Steers and the Cleveland Pipers was started after 11 p.m. so that a game between the Harlem Globetrotters and the so-called U.S. Stars could be played first.

Then, with the teams tied in victories after the first four games—two in Cleveland and two in Kansas City—there was a mean wrangle over where the fifth and final game should be played. Abe Saperstein, commissioner of the league, owner of the Globetrotters and president of the Chicago entry in the ABL, assured the Cleveland Pipers, or so the Pipers thought, that the fifth game would be played either in Cleveland or on a neutral court.

But shortly before the fourth game Saperstein informed both team presidents that any fifth game would be played the next night, Sunday, at Rockhurst College in Kansas City in a gymnasium seating approximately 1,500 people. George Steinbrenner, Cleveland president, declared his team wouldn't show up for a Sunday night game in Kansas City. And Saperstein said he was going to see his lawyer about that. Then the Steers, while changing planes in Chicago on Sunday, were offered the option of playing the final game in St. Louis on April 14 as part of a doubleheader with the Globetrotters and U.S. Stars, or of just sharing the championship with Cleveland. The Steers turned down both offers. Saperstein then announced the playoff would occur Monday night in the Rockhurst College gym. The Cleveland players voted to go to Kansas City, and they won the championship, which by that time had diminished to a minor honor.
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein

[rlee]

by Pat McManamon
Fanhouse.com

CLEVELAND -- The first person fired by George Steinbrenner in professional sports didn't work for the New York Yankees.

Mike Cleary earned the honor in the early '60s when he was shown the door as general manger of the Cleveland Pipers, a basketball team in the old and short-lived American Basketball League. It wasn't the honor many might think, though.

"I was first only because George didn't coach CYO (the Catholic Youth Organization)," Cleary said with a chuckle Tuesday from his suburban Cleveland office of the National Collegiate Directors of Athletics, where he is executive director.

Cleary chuckled just as he chuckled at his years with Steinbrenner, who was as cantankerous when he took over the Pipers in 1961 as he was when he ran the New York Yankees. Anyone who knew of his time with the Pipers would have considered it a foreshadowing of Steinbrenner's more famous -- and notorious -- ways in New York. With the Pipers, Steinbrenner spent and fired the same way he did with the Yankees -- albeit it on a much smaller stage and scale.

"They were rocky times," Cleary said of Steinbrenner who died on Tuesday, "but George was a good, good guy. He was tough, but good.

"Heck, I knew after that I wasn't going to run into anyone who intimidated me anymore."

Steinbrenner was born in Rocky River, a west-side suburb of Cleveland. He grew up in Bay Village, the next town to the west along Lake Erie.

His father owned Kinsman Marine Transit in Lorain, a company whose boats carried ore on the Great Lakes. In 1961, Steinbrenner worked for his father and lived in Bay Village.

The Pipers had played in the National Industrial Basketball League, and Cleary ran the Pipers. His team won the title in 1961. But the owner lost the team due to lack of finances, and Steinbrenner headed a group that bought the team for $25,000. With the purchase, Steinbrenner inherited Cleary and coach John McLendon.

Cleary had hired McLendon as the first professional African-American coach in the nation, but said he wasn't doing anything special. "We just wanted to win," Cleary said.

The team moved to the ABL at the urging of Abe Saperstein, owner of the Harlem Globetrotters. Saperstein felt snubbed when the NBA did not give him a team in Los Angeles, instead allowing the Minneapolis Lakers to move west. So he started the ABL to compete with the NBA, and urged Steinbrenner to join him.

Steinbrenner's Pipers became one of the ABL's eight teams for the 1961-62 season. At one point, Steinbrenner sold a player to the Hawaii franchise and figured it best he switch teams at halftime.

"The other team was in town and George saw no reason to wait," Cleary said. "Just have him switch uniforms and save everybody a lot of money."

At that point, Cleary was working for the Kansas City franchise, having been sent packing by Steinbrenner before the season had even started.

The issue: The signing of Dick Barnett, who would eventually go on to play for the Knicks' championship team in 1970. In 1961, Cleveland had two thriving papers, and news was released in cycles -- morning, then afternoon. When Barnett signed, it was the turn of the afternoon Cleveland Press to get the news.

Steinbrenner expected a story worthy of what he felt was a coup. But GIb Shanley, who would go on to be the longtime voice of the Browns, caught wind of Barnett's signing and broadcast it on the evening news at 11. Chuck Heaton, a reporter for the morning Plain Dealer (and father of actress Patricia Heaton), saw the report and called Cleary to tell him he had to write something. Heaton managed to get three or four paragraphs in the paper the next morning (this was also the time of actual, not virtual, deadlines).

When the Cleveland Press saw the report, the paper's reporter -- Bob August -- figured the news was out and gave the story three or four paragraphs in the afternoon. Steinbrenner's "coup" was treated as second-rate news, and he took it out on Cleary.

"George goes ballistic," Cleary said. "Called me right in, and we were screaming at each other. One of those you're fired-I quit things. His sister was my secretary, and she was trying to referee. It was something."

Cleary went to Kansas City, and Shanley and Steinbrenner became good friends. The two were regular members of a gaggle of other regulars at The Theatrical, a bar in downtown Cleveland where a lot of stories were told and deals made.

Barnett led the Pipers to the ABL title in the 1961-62 season, beating Cleary's Kansas City team in five games to win the championship.



After that season, though, Steinbrenner fired McLendon and hired Bill Sharman, thinking he needed a bigger name.

"George didn't want McLendon from Day One," Cleary said. "But he was stuck with him. He couldn't fire him because he was winning."

Then Steinbrenner shocked the basketball world by signing Ohio State star Jerry Lucas to a two-year, $50,000 contract. That deal prompted the NBA to look at adding the Pipers -- for $400,000, a fee that included $100,000 paid to Cincinnati for the territorial rights to Lucas.

Steinbrenner was NBA-bound -- except he couldn't come up with the money. His father, who believed his son should work for his money, did not give him any, and one of his key partners backed out.

Instead of putting Cleveland in the NBA in 1962 with the Pipers, Steinbrenner folded the team -- one of two crucial moments in Cleveland sports history that involved Steinbrenner. The second came in 1972, when Steinbrenner reached a verbal agreement to buy the Cleveland Indians for $8.5 million from Vernon Stouffer.

Stouffer, though, backed out of the deal and instead sold to Nick Mileti. Steinbrenner took his sports passion to New York, where he bought the Yankees and where his drive and financial standing made the Yankees into baseball's premier franchise again. Cleveland sports ... suffered.

"Things would have been tremendously different, on both (sports) fronts, had he succeeded," Cleary said. "In the Pipers' case, though, he just didn't have the financing."

Cleary said the last time he saw Steinbrenner was at a National Football Foundation Banquet in New York a couple years ago. Cleary was on the dais for the black tie event, but noticed a Yankees table so he went over to say hello to Steinbrenner.

"For whatever reason he was standing there all by himself," Cleary said. "So I tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around and looked and smiled and said, 'How are you doing?'

"We talked for a few minutes, and he put his arm on my shoulder -- he always put his arm on your shoulder when he was going to say something to you -- and said, 'I'll tell you one thing, Mike: You were always loyal.'

Cleary also remembered that Steinbrenner enjoyed a laugh, too.

"When I was fired he did not give me my two weeks' pay," Cleary said. "Our league operated under a deal where we went in and played three-game series. Really, it was because the first night someone would start a fight and then you'd come back to the second night. Like hockey.

"I think the visiting team got 25 percent of the gate. So the first time Cleveland came to Kansas City I held back two weeks' salary and an additional two weeks. I think by the time I did that there was like $28.50 left or something.

"Well I put a note in with the check.

"'Dear George, Inadvertently when I left you forgot to give me my last two weeks' salary. Knowing how magnanimous you are by nature, I'm sure you wanted to give me two weeks' severance too. Best, Mike.'

"I had warned John he should not be in the office when George opened the envelope. I told him to give him the check and the envelope and get out of the room. I was in my office, figuring when they left Kansas City and when they'd arrive in Cleveland.

"I figured the phone would ring at 4, and right about 4 it rang. It was him.

"And he was laughing. He said: 'Well you got me that time you son of a b---h. Now we're even.'

"From that time we were good friends.

"I have nothing but good memories, and wish his family nothing but the best. He was a good guy."
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein

[Bruce Kitts]

To clear up an error in chronology: Steinbrenner bought the Pipers after their first season in the NIBL, and was the owner when the Pipers won the NIBL and the AAU championship in 1961. (Some of the accounts had him buying them after the 1961 season and taking them directly into the ABL)

One of the Plain Dealer stories muddled the NIBL and ABL into something they called the National Basketball League. (Actually, the NIBL decided to change its name to the NBL about a month before it folded.)

[rlee]

Gary's Barnett played for Steinbrenner

By Lauri Harvey Keagle
nwitimes.com


Former NBA guard Dick Barnett was 25 years old when he went to play for George Steinbrenner's Cleveland Pipers in the American Basketball League.
"He was a very creative, innovative, very vibrant individual at that time," said Barnett, a Gary native and 1955 graduate of Gary Roosevelt High School.
Steinbrenner, a notorious, meddling, big-league boss whose fiery side made his persona a mainstay on the comedy "Seinfeld," died of a heart attack Tuesday at the age of 80. In his 37.5 years as owner of the New York Yankees, the team captured seven World Series titles and skyrocketed in value from $8.7 million in 1973 to $1.6 billion, trailing only Manchester United ($1.8 billion) and the Dallas Cowboys ($1.65 billion).
The Pipers franchise was the first professional sports team for Steinbrenner, the son of an Ohio shipbuilder. Barnett calls the period his "maiden voyage."
"I think it really came down to his enthusiasm and personality and desire to get into a new field he wasn't entirely familiar with," Barnett said.
Steinbrenner was actively involved with the players, Barnett said, "probably too much."
"He wanted to intercede and have a micro-affiliation with what was going on instead of leaving that to the coaches," he said. "He carried that over when he got involved with the Yankees, I believe."
Barnett spent 14 years as a professional basketball player, nine of which were with the New York Knicks, including the 1970 team that won the NBA championship against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Barnett, who resides in New York and works as a motivational speaker after retiring from teaching at the university level, said he learned over the years from Steinbrenner's achievements.
"You just look at his success and what he was trying to do," he said. "At the time, everyone was saying Cleveland never won anything, but we won the (1961-62) ABL championship during that time under his leadership. He was a consummate businessman. There's always a dichotomy between business and games, and he kept a viewpoint that delineated between the two."
Barnett, who recently lost his mother, who still lived in Gary, said he heard of Steinbrenner's passing on the morning news and thought, "for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for me and it tolls for thee."
"You better make hay while you can," he said. "Tell people you love them and do the best you can while you're here."
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein

[rlee]

http://tinyurl.com/2d5eux2

lots of other great Cleveland Pipers photos: http://tinyurl.com/26zt8dm
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein

[rlee]

Larry Siegfried was Steinbrenner's first big signee
BY JON SPENCER • NEWS JOURNAL

MANSFIELD -- As the free-spending owner of the New York Yankees, George Steinbrenner lavished millions on baseball's biggest stars, players like Jim "Catfish" Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Dave Winfield, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

But "The Boss," who died Tuesday at age 80 of a massive heart attack, made his first big splash in professional sports by signing one of north central Ohio's favorite sons.

When Shelby legend and Ohio State star Larry Siegfried snubbed the NBA and signed with Steinbrenner's Cleveland Pipers of the fledgling American Basketball League in 1961, that was groundbreaking news.

Siegfried, who helped OSU win the national championship in 1960, was taken with the third pick in the NBA draft, behind future NBA Hall of Famer Walt Bellamy and St. Bonaventure All-American Tom Stith.

But Steinbrenner, a shipping magnate from Cleveland, had other ideas.

"I remember him telling me, 'I won't be out-bid by Cincinnati,' " said Siegfried, 71, who lives with his wife, Tina, in Perrysville. "He paid me $20,000. Cincinnati was only going to give me $14,000 or $15,000."

Siegfried didn't just follow the money. He was still bitter about the Cincinnati Bearcats ruining Ohio State's bid for back-to-back national championships by stunning the unbeaten Buckeyes in the 1961 title game. He couldn't envision making a living in enemy territory.

"The money (from the Pipers) was more, but the bigger issue was coming off that Cincinnati loss," Siegfried said. "I had people tell me it took (guts) to turn down the NBA, but I didn't look at it that way. There was bad blood with Cincinnati and I don't know if it's ever been resolved."

Tennessee State coach John McLendon was hired to coach the Pipers, becoming the first African American head coach in professional basketball. Steinbrenner's Pipers won the ABL title, but the league folded after just one season.

"McLendon brought his whole team with him from Tennessee State," Siegfried said. "Coming off the situation I was in at Ohio State and going into a new league with a new team, it was like a circus. In hindsight, those are things I should have weighed."

Siegfried liked Steinbrenner, who wasn't the meddler he would become with the Yankees.

"He was a big spender, a big talker, the whole nine yards," Siegfried said, "but I didn't see him that much. It wasn't like the Yankees, where he had his finger on the pulse and knew when everybody was getting their hair cut. He was a big Cleveland guy, investing in a new league and hoping it would hit.

"The big idea was to get the NBA to expand by adding teams from (the ABL). It made sense. Instead of buying an NBA franchise, build a franchise for less and work your way into the league."

In the spring of 1962, Steinbrenner signed Sieg-fried's OSU teammate Jerry Lucas to a player-management contract worth $50,000. The plan was to merge the Pipers with the Kansas City Steers and join the NBA. But Steinbrenner and his partner fell behind in payments to the NBA and the deal was canceled.

Siegfried eventually hooked up with the Boston Celtics, where he was reunited with OSU teammate John Havlicek. They went on to win five NBA titles together in Boston.

Steinbrenner didn't do bad himself, winning seven world championships as owner of the Yankees.

"George was charismatic," Siegfried said. "He told me 'We need you here.' He didn't talk me into joining the Pipers, but he wasn't a liability either. He was a real salesman."
_________________
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
Albert Einstein