It was one of those winter storms which fly off Lake Erie and make their way up the Buffalo

River. This one came in the early 1960s, creating damage when a couple of freighters belonging

to the Kinsman Shipping lines broke loose from their moorings and crashed into the Ohio Street

Bridge.

No one was hurt, but in its wake the storm left enough lawsuits to keep attorneys busy for

years. CEO of the shipping lines, Henry Steinbrenner of Cleveland, dispatched his son, George,

to Buffalo to work with the lawyers over settlements.

By day the son did his father's bidding but George was also a night person, not much of a

drinker but a full-blown debater. He found his way to the old Billboard on Washington Street,

a favorite of Courier-Express sports writers whose work day ceased around midnight.

Steinbrenner would argue until closing with fellow discussers, the likes of Ray Ryan, Jim

Peters, and occasionally me. Football, pro and college, were the most frequent subjects.

Steinbrenner had worked as an assistant coach at Northwestern under Lou Saban, and at

Purdue under Jack Mollenkopf. A lot of Cleveland talent found its way to Purdue when George

was there. In all those debates, I can't recall baseball being the subject of the night.

Then, in January 1973, the husband of my wife's matron of honor, Phil Donovan, was flying

from his home in Detroit to join his wife at her parents' home. His seatmate turned out to be

George Steinbrenner, who immediately informed Donovan that just that morning he had purchased

the New York Yankees from CBS. Further into their conversation, the pilot announced that a

snowstorm in Buffalo would force them to land in Rochester.

George being George, he commandeered the cockpit, found that the roads were clear into

Buffalo, ordered a limousine and told Donovan "you're coming with me." A few hours later the

limo deposited Phil at his in-laws' house.

Steinbrenner's Buffalo debates eventually moved to the Royal Arms on West Utica Street, the

place to go when seeking great jazz. That is where Steinbrenner began a long friendship with

Max Margolis, one of the owners of the Arms. When the nightclub closed, George brought

Margolis to New York to run the restaurant at Yankee Stadium, later to Tampa where he worked

at Steinbrenner's Florida Downs race track and his hotel, the Yankee Clipper, named after Joe

DiMaggio.

Steinbrenner and Saban had a relationship since Lou's days as captain of the great

Cleveland Browns teams which dominated the game under coach Paul Brown. When Saban ran out of

football teams to coach, Steinbrenner hired him as president of the Yankees. One of his duties

was to fire people Steinbrenner wanted fired.

One day in the '90s I was covering spring training in Fort Lauderdale, then the Yankees'

training base, when Saban asked me to join him in the stands hours before the game began. The

place was virtually empty but we kept moving from place to place. Finally Lou said to me,

"Hey, NASA is having a launch at Cape Canaveral and we can see it from the top of the stadium,

let's go."

I later found out that Saban was dodging a call from Steinbrenner telling him to fire Gene

Michael, then the general manager, whom Saban admired. Lou was hiding. Michael avoided the

firing that day but didn't survive the season, with Saban preceding him.

Larry Felser, former News columnist, appears in Sunday's editions.