The birthday boss: Controversial Yankees owner approaching 75

NEW YORK — On the verge of 75, George Steinbrenner admits he has mellowed.

He's known for hiring and firing, screaming and scheming, a cartoon-like figure who dominates the back and front pages of New York's tabloids. But he says the public image of The Boss is nothing like reality.

"I'm really 95 percent Mr. Rogers," he said, "and only 5 percent Oscar the Grouch."

George Michael Steinbrenner III, who turns 75 Monday, acknowledges he was impatient when he was younger — and made mistakes. He defends his intense management style, says he has no idea when he will stop running the Yankees and says he has designated son-in-law Steve Swindal as his successor.

"I haven't always done a good job, and I haven't always been successful — but I know that I have tried," Steinbrenner said, answering a series of questions from The Associated Press submitted through spokesman Howard Rubenstein.

A Yankee Doodle Dandy born on the Fourth of July, 1930, in Rocky River, Ohio, Steinbrenner now is the senior owner in the major leagues, presiding over a 32 1/2-year reign of bedlam, venom, excess and success. Since he took over, the New York Yankees have produced six World Series titles, 10 American League pennants and 13 first-place finishes in the AL East, their value increasing more than 100-fold from the $8.7 million net price his group paid.

Presidents, financiers and members of high society fill his owner's box. At the June 15 news conference announcing plans for a new $800 million Yankee Stadium he hopes to open in 2009, politicians fawned over him, repeatedly calling him "King George."

New York newspapers plant reporters outside the ballpark on days he attends games, just in case he stops to speak. New York Daily News cartoonist Bill Gallo draws him as Gen. Von Steingrabber, a Prussian warrior. The television show "Seinfeld" in the 1990s portrayed him as the eccentric employer of George Costanza, a fictional assistant to the Yankees' traveling secretary.

When Steinbrenner's group bought the team from CBS Inc. on Jan. 3, 1973, he proclaimed: "We plan absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned. We're not going to pretend we're something we aren't. I'll stick to building ships." It didn't quite work out that way.