CRETE | As large as the Tuesday morning death of New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner loomed over Major League Baseball, it was felt equally across the world of horse racing.
In Illinois, Steinbrenner owned tracks, worked with breeders, shopped for horses and maintained a special relationship with brothers John and Duke Johnston.
The Johnstons, presidents of Balmoral Park in Crete and Maywood Park in Melrose Park, became partners with Steinbrenner, 80, more than two decades ago when their family approached him about buying Balmoral.
John Johnston was 24 in 1987 when he helped drive the deal with Steinbrenner to buy into the track from then-owner Eddie DeBartolo. Like Steinbrenner, DeBartolo had Midwestern roots in Ohio, and he also had aspirations to own a baseball team, attempting to buy the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago White Sox.
Steinbrenner made the Balmoral deal work, then turned to John Johnston with an offer.
"(George) was really into youth, and he gave me a vote of confidence," Johnston said Tuesday. "He looked at me and said, 'OK, you run the place.' That was all he had to say. I would never let him down because he gave me that opportunity."
In addition to being a frequent face in the stands at tracks in New York and Florida, where he lived and owned a thoroughbred farm in Ocala that produced five Kentucky Derby starters, Steinbrenner often visited his tracks in Illinois, John Johnston said, in part because Chicago's central location often was the site for meetings of MLB owners.
"He would go to the sales in (downstate) Springfield and DuQuoin," John Johnston said. "He bought horses here in Illinois, and he would come to visit us when baseball was in town."
The Johnstons became friends with Steinbrenner's children, and the business partnership became something more.
"We've been partners for over 20 years, and as good as our business relationship was, we had a good personal relationship," Duke Johnston said. "George was a very classy man. That's about all you can say about him; he was a very classy person."
Duke Johnston described Steinbrenner as a smart business partner who was not like the ogre portrayed in the media, particularly his perceived tempestuous relationship with Yankees managers. The only similarity, whether he was backing a horse or a home run hitter, was that he hated losing.
"I downright believe he truly hated to lose," Johnston said. "I owned a horse with him. She was an unnamed yearling, a filly, and I asked him what he wanted to name the horse, and he said, 'Name it whatever you want.' So I named it Elaine Benes," after a character on the television comedy "Seinfeld," in which Steinbrenner often was lampooned by creator Larry David.
"He thought it was fine," Johnston said. "He got a little bit of a chuckle out of it. The problem was, she wasn't a good filly. I don't think she ever won a race. The first time she ran, she finished third, and, oh boy, George was having a fit.
"After that, I said, 'OK, George, I don't think we're going to buy another horse together. Let's just be business partners.' "
John Johnston recalled a charity race at Balmoral in which Steinbrenner took the reins against Chicago Bears stars Mike Ditka, Willie Gault and Gary Fencik.
"(Steinbrenner) assumed we were going to put him on the best horse, and we made sure he was, but he and Ditka went out and went at it on the first end of the race," John Johnston said. "By the time they turned and headed for home, Gault passed them. He was ... disappointed, to say the least.
"There's an old saying that goes 'some people like to win more than they hate to lose, and some people hate losing more than they like to win,' if you can follow that. He hated to lose more than he liked winning."
As he spoke, Duke Johnston laughed often, remembering Steinbrenner's sense of humor and his ability to poke fun at himself, particularly on television when he made appearances on "The Late Show With David Letterman" and "Saturday Night Live."
Behind the scenes, Duke Johnston said Steinbrenner was "a tremendous family guy; he loved his kids, loved his grandkids. He was very generous, very charitable. You can't speak highly enough about his generosity. When they had the Mississippi River flood, he donated a lot of money. He donated money to kids and stuff. He had a heart of gold."
John Johnston agreed, saying Steinbrenner's charitable streak was part of how he ran his business.
"(Steinbrenner) was insistent on a first-class operation," John Johnston said. "There's not a whole lot of competitiveness, other than the handicapping. So he wanted a first-class operation for the customer and the fan. As a result, he was very generous with charities. He had an anger and a competitive streak, but when the cameras weren't looking he was very giving. He did things on a low-key basis that people will never know."
John Johnston drew parallels in Steinbrenner's expectations from his horse tracks and his baseball team.
"He had a passion for it," he said. "Not only for himself, but for the city. He was a big organization man. He felt that he had a debt to put the best team on the field. ... He expected loyalty, and if you gave it to him and performed, you were all right in his eyes."
