The melancholy reality about the men who own sports franchises, especially in this city, is that they rarely see the day of their greatest, most unanimous glory. That only comes in the moments after they pass from this mortal coil, begin their journey to that Great Owner’s Box in the Sky.
And so it is George Steinbrenner, reviled by his own fans for so much of his tenure as the owner of the Yankees, has enjoyed consensus veneration from those same fans for almost every day since July 13, 2010. So it is that Wellington Mara — who moved the New York Giants to New Jersey, who ran the operation for each of the 17 seasons from 1964 to 1980, when the team failed to make the playoffs — has had those trifling truths all but expunged from his permanent record since Oct.