It is now time.

No owner has done more to keep baseball energized and visible to growing numbers of engaged fans from across the country than George M. Steinbrenner, the sometimes reviled owner of the New York Yankees.

He has built a team that helps maintain the spotlight on Major League Baseball in an increasingly competitive sports and entertainment environment.

It does not matter whether you revere him, as many do on the subways of New York, or resent him, as many do in other major-league cities. His long record of success is indisputable.

During his more than 30 years in the Bronx, Steinbrenner’s Yankees have won 10 American League pennants and six World Series. No team has done better in either league.

In my opinion, he has earned a plaque at baseball’s Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, and he would fit in with the likes of fellow pinstripers Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Berra, Jackson and Ford, among others.

Like those before me as league president, I was once one of his favorite targets and felt the sting of his public criticism. I dealt with him and his moods on numerous occasions. I found him to be at least two people – one driven by ambition and emotion, the other, generous to a fault.

George Steinbrenner is, first and foremost, determined and rarely deterred.

“Winning is the most important thing in my life, after breathing. Breathing first, winning next,” he reminded me and the members of the league staff. He always sought a competitive edge for his players, and he generally questioned umpiring calls that went against his team.

“I will never have a heart attack. I give them,” he once said at a league meeting. He also reminded his 11 general managers of this contention and in those words.

Steinbrenner believes owning the Yankees is much like possessing a rare piece of art. Such masterpieces are meant to be enjoyed and not sold.

Interestingly, he formed a group in 1973 to purchase the storied franchise for $8.7 million, and today many believe the New York Yankees would fetch more than a billion dollars and there would be a long line of suitors with deep pockets. The club is, by the way, not for sale.

The Yankees will have a new ballpark in 2009, which some already believe will be referred to as the house that Steinbrenner built. The old stadium is often called the house that Ruth built.

The New York entry in the American League is a big business. In the past six years, the Yankees have drawn more than 22 million men, women and children to historic Yankee Stadium. Amazingly, the New Yorkers have attracted 81 percent of that number on the road. MLB continues to post record attendance, eclipsing the combined total of the NFL, NBA and NHL.

Owners love having the Yankees come to town since those games result in much larger than usual crowds and spirited competition. No team draws better on the road than the Bronx Bombers, and that has been true for generations. Derek Jeter, the team captain, even says he is energized by the chorus of boos that greet the Yanks everywhere outside the cavernous Stadium in New York.

Steinbrenner also writes large checks for MLB revenue sharing and the so-called luxury tax, monies that find their way to other clubs.

“You have to be willing to spend to win,” he once told me.

There is no doubt Steinbrenner can be difficult to work for and with. He changed managers 20 times in his first 23 seasons, and five times he hired and fired the hot-tempered Billy Martin. He selected Joe Torre as his manager in 1995 and that relationship has endured and been highly productive.

Some around the game regard him as a bully while others, and especially the Yankee faithful, see him as a champion who will spend what it takes to win. The Yankee payroll now exceeds $200 million, easily the highest in all of Major League Baseball.

“Major League Baseball is more than the Yankees, but it would be a lot less without them,” Don Walton, columnist for the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star observed.

Steinbrenner is, without question, a highly successful entrepreneur who can sound more like a college football coach than an owner of a sports empire. A student-athlete at Williams College, he began a brief career in coaching as a football assistant at Northwestern and Purdue.

Steinbrenner has been extremely generous to charities in New York and Tampa, where he resides. The cab drivers in Tampa love him for his good works. He has given to needed health, social, and educational projects, as well as to college and university athletic programs.

During my time in MLB, he never said no to a deserving project the league supported and often was the first to give. When fined, he liked to argue about which charity should receive the money.

Steinbrenner was suspended twice from baseball, but each time he returned with renewed zeal to win on the field. He never forgot the fans and the formula for winning.

At 76, George M. Steinbrenner is a true original, a Yankee Doodle Dandy born on the Fourth of July. Above all, he never flinched, but did it his way. He deserves a plaque at Cooperstown.