Sports ennoble us through the  symbolic exploits of latter-day mythic heroes, who use their amazing skills and talents to exemplify courage, grace under adversity, loyalty, accountability, sacrifice, and, of course, sportsmanship.

Or so they say.

Sometimes it works out that way, but just as often an extraordinary athlete like LeBron James will choose to use his prominence to promote less attractive character traits, like greed, vanity, disloyalty, cruelty and boorishness. For some reason, the mega-millions LeBron was going to receive for fleeing Cleveland as an NBA free agent was not sufficient booty: the basketball star felt that “branding” required that he tease as many cities and franchises as possible, rub Cleveland’s loss in the faces of his previously worshipful fans in that city, and then announce his final choice of new employers in an ESPN TV special that embarrassed his sport and his species. James is not alone, of course; he has lots of company among college and professional athletes whose preening and selfishness make it impossible to use their names and “role model” in the same sentence.

But for the use of sport to warp ethical priorities, nothing quite matches the nauseating accolades being heaped on the late George Steinbrenner, whose ownership of  the New York Yankees was a decades-long advertisement for the principle that the end justifies the means, and as long as you win, nothing else really matters.

It’s understandable, I suppose, that New York baseball fans would be grateful to “The Boss.”  He restored the team of Ruth and Mantle to its former dominance, no doubt about it. In the process, he single-handedly sent baseball salaries into the stratosphere, made a family outing to the ballpark unaffordable for anyone not making six figures, and doomed the fans of teams not owned by billionaires with a fanatic desire to crush the opposition to dust to begin every season knowing the home town team had no chance.

Steinbrenner’s Yankees epitomized “win at all costs.” If a fan interfering with a ball in play or running out on the field happened to win the Yankees a game they otherwise would have lost, George showered the misbehaving fan with gifts. He didn’t care about honest effort; he cared only about results. In 1981, after (it is widely believed) falsely telling the press that he had engaged in a fight with two Dodger fans as a ploy to fire up his faltering team, Steinbrenner humiliated the Yankees by apologizing to the city of New York for their World Series loss. He brutalized employees, fired managers like they were temps, and repeatedly placed the Yankee fortunes into the hands of  Billy Martin, whose calling cards were unapologetic drunkenness, physical violence, and dishonesty.

It “worked,” though: the Yankees won lots of championships, not that George ever showed much gratitude. It was one of many ethical values he had no use for. When Joe Torre, the manager who led the Yankees to their most recent string of championships failed to make it to the World Series in four straight seasons, the Boss and his sons insisted that his contract include a requirement that Torre’s teams do so before he could get his maximum salary. (Torre, to his credit, told the Steinbrenners to take  their job and shove it.)

This was just ugly human relations and bullying management, however. George’s real character came to the fore when he paid a gambler $40,000 to find dirt on one of his own players, Dave Winfield. This got him temporarily banned from baseball, the second time he was deemed worthy of the game’s most serious punishment. The first time was after Steinbrenner pleaded guilty of making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon, and lying about it to investigators.

All this, of course, is only the stuff we know about. The record is fairly persuasive that George Steinbrenner was the ethical equivalent of Ken Lay,  his pal Nixon and the Goldman Sachs executives. He was out to win, and didn’t let little details like treating people fairly or playing by the rules get in his way.

Yet this is how New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg described him:

“He was a champion who made New York a better place, and who always gave back to the city he loved. He has left an indelible legacy on the Yankees, on baseball, and on our city, and he leaves us in the only way that would be appropriate: as a reigning world champion.”

You see, that is all that counts: he was a winner. All the talk about emphasizing ethics and values and sportsmanship, all the criticism of Wall Street wheeler-dealers—it is all hypocritical and meaningless if the real lesson is:  “Being unethical is great if it works. If it works, if you win, it’s swell: you’re a great American. Breaking the rules, treating people badly, being mean-spirited and ruthless—these things only become wrong when they don’t get the desired results.”

In 1990, when it was announced in Yankee Stadium that Steinbrenner had been banned from baseball “for life” by Baseball Commissioner Faye Vincent, the fans gave the announcement a gleeful standing ovation. The Yankees hadn’t won for a decade: Stienbrenner’s unethical methods weren’t working; the fans motivation was wrong, but their judgment was correct. Every time the media and public officials praise the likes of George Steinbrenner for his accomplishments, ignoring the despicable and wrong methods he used to achieve them, the worst tendencies in American conduct are endorsed, nourished and strengthened.

George Steinebrenner didn’t believe that what mattered was how you played the game. He believed that winning justified almost anything. Praising him as a sportsman renders the word meaningless, and those who do neither care about ethics, nor can be believed when they say they do.