Steinbrenner Sued By Former MSG Pres

From Neil Best:

Former Madison Square Garden president Bob Gutkowski filed a suit in federal court in Manhattan Friday seeking at least $23 million from Yankees principal owner George Steinbrenner.

The suit alleges it was Gutkowski's idea in the mid-1990s that Steinbrenner launch a team-owned TV network, which eventually became YES, and that Steinbrenner failed to live up to repeated promises that Gutkowski would run the network.

Gutkowski said in a statement that he hoped to avoid a suit but that Steinbrenner's representatives sought to prevent him from speaking to the owner.

"Their actions made it very clear that the only way for me to be fairly compensated for the idea that I brought to George and the work that I performed was to sue him,'' Gutkowski said.

A spokesman for Steinbrenner labeled the allegations "patently false and frivolous. They will be proven so. Mr. Gutkowski had nothing to do with the initiation of the idea for for the New York Yankees nor did he have any role in the establishment or success of the YES Network.

"He was never promised that he would be the CEO of the network nor was he promised any high-level position at the network.''

The suit was filed against Steinbrenner personally rather than the Yankees because Gutkowski asserts the owner made promises himself.

You never know what's what with these sort of cases. There's always three sides of the story; Steinbrenner's, Gutkowski's, and then the truth.