What Can The Late George Steinbrenner and the New York Yankees Teach Us About Economies and Diseconomies of Scale? From 1972-1976 the Oakland A's and Cincinnati Reds won all five of baseball's World Series Championships. Despite this amazing success, only 5 of those players went on to the baseball Hall of Fame. These teams dominated baseball. That is a total of 660+ possible players with less than 1% of them making it to the Hall of Fame as part of baseball's elite. When George Steinbrenner took over the Yankees in the early 1970's he wanted to have the best players at every position. In 1977-1978 it worked - they won 2 straight World Series titles - only two of players on that team (both former Oakland A's) made it to the baseball Hall of Fame. Most of the other players on the team came through the Yankees minor league farm system or were received in trades. Despite all the NYY successes since George initially purchased the team, they have had only one player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in the Steinbrenner Era. In the 1980's George pushed for better players and he got them - stacking his teams with perennial All-Star caliber players, paying them untold millions of dollars in salary. What did He get for that? He got the Yankees to perform as one of the worst teams in baseball from 1982-1991....What happened? What did George S. not understand about Economies of Scale and Dis-economies of Scale? Same rules as always. You may, and are encouraged to, bring in other examples outside the NY Yankees and sports - especially from your workplace or school.