Hank Greenberg Quotes

(Cobb brought as his guest Tigers third baseman George Moriarity, who during the 1935 World Series as an umpire would distinguish himself by stalking over to the Chicago Cubs dugout and threatening to eject the entire team after some players had made anti-Semitic remarks to Tigers star Hank Greenberg.) The next day Cobb broke his rule about

Waiting for the Cardinals-Dodgers winner, the Red Sox decided to try to keep their edge by playing an exhibition series at Fenway Park against a handpicked group of leading American Leaguers that included Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg. It was a cold, raw day, and only 1,996 people turned out to watch the first game on October 1, when DiMaggio was forced to take the field in a Boston uniform after his Yankees flannels did not arrive on time. In

Rewriting the baseball record book must be very fulfilling. Or maybe not. Yankees outfielder Roger Maris knew firsthand the fickle nature of success. After an MVP season in 1960—when he hit 39 homers and drove in a league-high 112 runs—Maris began a historic assault on one of baseball’s most imposing records: Babe Ruth’s single-season home run mark of 60. In the thirty-three seasons since the Bambino had set the standard, only a handful of players had come close when Jimmie Foxx in 1932 and Hank Greenberg in 1938 each hit 58. Hack Wilson, in 1930, slammed 56. But in 1961, Maris—playing in “The House That Ruth Built”—launched 61 home runs to surpass baseball’s most legendary slugger. Surprisingly, the achievement angered fans who seemed to feel Maris lacked the appropriate credentials to unseat Ruth. Some record books reminded readers that the native Minnesotan had accomplished his feat in a season eight games longer than Ruth’s. Major League Baseball, due to expansion, changed the traditional 154-game season to 162 games with the 1961 season. Of the new home run record, Maris said, “All it ever brought me was trouble.” Human achievements can be that way. Apart from God, the things we most desire can become empty and unfulfilling—even frustrating—as the writer of Ecclesiastes noted. “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income,” he wrote (5:10). “Everyone’s toil is for their mouth,” he added, “yet their appetite is never satisfied” (6:7). But the Bible also shows where real satisfaction is found, in what Ecclesiastes calls “the conclusion of the matter.” Fulfillment comes to those who “fear God and keep his commandments” (12:13).

Ultimately it was clashes with regulators, not family members, that led to the downfall of Hank Greenberg.

I knew we’d be accused of rewarding incompetence, of throwing public money down a rat hole. But I believed we had gotten taxpayers a reasonable deal, not just in the financial terms of the loan, but by avoiding even more severe damage to the economy. I’d soon get some early validation of that when Hank Greenberg, AIG’s hard-driving former chief executive and a major shareholder in the firm, visited me to complain that the Fed had been given too much equity in AIG, too much of the upside. I was a bit shocked by the audacity; basically, he wanted us to give back a big chunk of the company. I told him we hadn’t done the deal to make money, and we’d be happy to sell him back some of the equity if he’d be willing to take some of the risk. But what interested me was Greenberg’s confidence that we’d get a positive return from AIG, rather than the tens of billions in losses that everyone else seemed to expect. He’d be right about that, but only because of the force of the government’s actions to stabilize the company and the broader financial system over the next few years. He and other AIG shareholders would end up suing the federal government, claiming that we had been unjustly harsh to the firm we rescued.

As the world economy grows, and as the super-elite, in particular, get richer, the superstars who work for the super-rich can charge super fees. Consider the 2009 legal showdown between Hank Greenberg and AIG, the insurance giant he had built. It was a high-stakes battle, as AIG accused Greenberg, through a privately held company, Starr International, of misappropriating $4.3 billion worth of assets. For his defense, Greenberg hired David Boies. With his trademark slightly ratty Lands’ End suits (ordered a dozen at a time by his office online), his midwestern background, his proud affection for Middle American pastimes like craps, and his severe dyslexia (he didn’t learn how to read until he was in the third grade), Boies comes across as neither a superstar nor a member of the super-elite. But he is both. Boies and his eponymous firm earned a reputed $100 million for the nine-month job of defending Greenberg. That was one of the richest fees earned in a single litigation. Yet, for Greenberg, it was a terrific deal. When you have $4.3 billion at risk, $100 million—only 2.3 percent of the total—just isn’t that much money. (Further sweetening the transaction was the judge’s eventual ruling that AIG, then nearly 80 percent owned by the U.S. government, was liable for up to $150 million of Greenberg’s legal fees, but he didn’t know that when he retained Boies.) It

To me, the mark of a truly great sporting venue has never been what it sounds like or how it feels when the stands are packed. That's easy. Even the most generic cookie-cutter stadium or arena feels electric when the game is big, the lights are on, and the crowd is amped. The real measure of a ballpark's character is how the place feels when it's empty. When the only noises to be heard are produced by the occasional breeze that slips through the concourse. It rattles the ropes on the empty center-field flagpoles. It pushes a stray plastic cup around beneath the feet of the box seats. And if you listen closely enough, that wind carries on it the whispers of the ghosts. The athletes who played between the lines, their toes in the dirt where only those who compete are allowed to roam. During my career in sports media, I've heard their voices at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway. I've heard them at Lambeau Field and the Rose Bowl. I've heard them at old Boston Garden and Augusta National. And the morning of Thursday, March 3, 1994, I heard them at McCormick Field. Cobb, Gehrig, Dizzy Dean, Hank Greenberg, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Willie Stargell. From the Hall of Famers to a thousand minor leaguers whose names no one remembers. I swear, they were all there that morning to welcome us into the little mountain ballpark that they'd helped build.