Jeff, just to point out: he's dead. It's not self-bestowed.
I think if he was going to build a monument to himself, he could have done it when he was alive. He's got a whole stadium in Tampa named after himself.
I visited Monument Park for the first time this past summer. I found it sterile in comparison with the old one, perhaps because it's missing the foliage the old one had, and maybe some of the history.
That said, I took some time to stop and look at the Jacob Ruppert plaque, and explain to my kids who Ruppert was and why he was important. It was good to have his plaque there, even if Ruppert never played.
Similarly it was good to have the plaque for the Papal visit and the memorial to 9/11 victims, even though neither one was baseball related.
As such, I think a Steinbrenner plaque is justified, and as I stated earlier, I can even stomach a monument. Whether or not he was the guy who assembled the championship teams (honors I'm more likely to bestow upon Gabe Paul, Gene Michael, Buck Showalter, and Brian Cashman), it was his bankroll and his attitude toward winning that enabled it. He turned a failing business into a successful one, and that business should recognize him for it.
That said, he never hit 60 home runs, he never won a triple crown, he never managed a team to a World Series, he never played in 2000 consecutive games, and he never gracefully patrolled center field like Ruth, Mantle, Huggins, Gehrig and DiMaggio did.
Those guys are the Yankee icons (and I'll add Casey Stengel to the list and wonder why he doesn't have a monument like Miller Huggins). Those are the guys who deserve the huge monuments.
When this group of ownership speaks of nebulous concepts like "pride" and "tradition," they need to understand that their enormous monument flies in the face of those concepts.
-Al
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