Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's timing, as it turns out, was right on the money. What a perfect venue to memorialize baseball's longest-tenured and most famous owner. And what a send-off at the game's annual All-Star extravaganza last night.
For a man who liked the attention, he would have loved last night.
As for the business angle, this is the one and only year that there is no federal estate tax. And for Steinbrenner's family - dealing with an estate worth more than $1 billion - that means saving hundreds of millions of dollars. Steinbrenner, who turned 80 on July 4, was listed as the 341st richest person in the Forbes list of the richest Americans last year. If he had died last year, or next year, his family, like so many other families that inherit money, would have had to sell something to pay the taxes.
Team officials insist the Yankees would not have been put up for sale, but, really, who knows?
We'll have the latest reaction to the death of the Yankees long-time owner, tonight at 11.
Also at 11, Lee Goldberg is once again tracking some of the severe weather that's moving in this week. Today, there were several reports of flooding in New Jersey, and some reported rescues of people stranded on top of their homes.
We'll also show you the just-discovered taped message from the would-be Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, in which the Pakistani-born American citizen makes what one observer described as possibly "the least fearsome terror tape ever made."
One terrorism expert who watched the tape just shook his head and said "mezkeen" - poor, pathetic guy.
Shahzad is seen on an Arab television station reading from what looks like a standards jihadist script - talking about occupied lands, and humiliated Muslims, and calling for revenge for American attacks that killed civilians.
Also at 11, the benefits of red wine being good for your heart has been well documented, but now comes a study that says some beer may be good for your bones. Say what?
It's true, according to Good Housekeeping. Sade Baderinwa has our story tonight.
Cheers.
And finally, some disturbing stats out of Afghanistan tonight. The number of Americans wounded so far this year - through July 3 - are approaching the number wounded all of last year. 2,000 versus 2,139. I'm just sayin'.
We'll also have any breaking news of the night, plus Scott Clark with the night's sports. I hope you can join Sade (in for Liz Cho) and me, tonight at 11.
