WHAT CAN YOU SAY about a man who once fired his secretary for not making a tuna fish sandwich on time? A man whose Williams College classmates voted him "Class Griper" and "Shovels It Fastest" in his college yearbook? A man who tried to explain away his $100,000 in illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 reelection campaign as an oversight? A man whose employees privately call him the "Fuhrer"?

Not a whole helluva lot that's favorable.

George M. Steinbrenner III, principal owner of the New York Yankees and probably the most hated man in sports today, has been raked over the coals by the press, the public and his players so many times that calling him "controversial" has become a compliment. The baseball campaign that opened this week should do little to improve Steinbrenner's p.r. Indeed, just last week he began his annual ritual of second-guessing his employees' judgment, publicly castigating current Yankee manager Bob Lemon for the squad's uninspiring spring training record.

When Steinbrenner sacks Lemon later this season, the manager will become the seventh field leader scuttled by Steinbrenner in nine years. During that time, the Bronx Bombers have racked up five divisional championships, four American League pennants, and two world championships.

In Steinbrenner! ABC sports reporter Dick Schaap gives The Great White Shipbuilder as fair a treatment as he'll probably ever get. Oh, he can't resist the usual jokes--he calls his subject "George III" for his tyrannical reign over the ballclub, and "the Yankee Clipper" for forcing his charges to get haircuts. (That demand angered at least one Yankee--outfielder Oscar Gamble, whose legendary afro added more than 12" to his six-foot frame, forcing his to affix his baseball cap with bobby pips)

And sure, Schaap has to tell the usual Steinbrenner stories, the ones the New York Post and Daily News have subsisted on since the Cleveland multimillionaire bought the squad in 1973. There's the derigeur stuff about the owner's hate-hate relationship with two-time manager Billy Martin, and the latest dirt on what Steinbrenner considers his "father-son" relationship with once and future Yankee manager Gene Michael, whom he canned last fall but soon rehired for the 1983 season. Schaap doesn't forget to mention the owner's interference with his managers' decisions, or his proclivity for spending ungodly sums on utility infielders, or his psychological warfare with ex-Yankee slugger Reggie Jackson.

BUT SCHAAP saves Steinbrenner! from becoming an easy hatchet job by accepting the controversial owner on his own terms: his refusal to make the book a compendium of New York Post columns turns Steinbrenner! into a valid, if often irreverent biography. Realizing that the owner has zealously shielded his wife and children from the press, for instance, Schaap resists the temptation to delve into Steinbrenner's family life. He does, however, rightly chide the owner for hiding behind his family, Schaap's recounting of the numerous times that his subject refused to talk with reporters, lying that his wife or son was ill, provide the only reminder that Steinbrenner's life includes more than the Yankees and money.

Despite Schaap's eagerness to interview Steinbrenner, and his obvious qualifications as a biographer (he has covered the Yankees since Steinbrenner took over, without taking sides in the team's regular internal battles) the owner refused to cooperate. In fact, Schaap says, Steinbrenner tried to quash the book, exhorting his friends not to answer the writer's questions (Most disobeyed.) Only when Schaap had completed the body of the book late this winter did Steinbrenner finally agree to talk to the author about his life. Unfortunately, the postscript that relates their nine-hour conversation does little besides confirm what Schaap has already made obvious: that the 51-year-old owner has always been obsessed with his public image and paranoid about his detractors.

Self-consciousness and willful deception emerge as long-standing Steinbrenner traits dating back to his comfortable suburban boyhood in Ohio. Steinbrenner's austere German father--whom he credits with instilling toughness in him--placed heavy demands on his only son. For one thing, he forced young George to wear a tie and jacket to grade school, losing him any friends he might have had; for another, he shipped the boy off to a military academy at age 14 where. Schaap observes, Steinbrenner's one good mark was an A-plus in military science.

In fact, Schaap quotes several psychologists as suggesting that the owner's legendary capriciousness could stem only from a need to please his father. And, says Schaap. Henry G. Steinbrenner was rarely pleased. When his son purchased the Yankees in 1973, his father told friends, "That's the first smart thing he's ever done."

In part because of Steinbrenner's strict upbringing, Schapp says the "mature" Steinbrenner alternates between two broad behavior patterns. The "good George"--whom he charges the press with overlooking entirely--has given many thousands of dollars to charities, and has often given generously when his ballplayers faced personal crises. That trait, Schaap suggests, steinbrenner the need to please the Steinbrenner has evinced since his adolescent inability to satisfy Papa Steinbrenner.

Any Yankee follower knows the "bad George," and Schaap describes a series of events that suggest that Steinbrenner's vengeful, authoritarian, and image-conscious side first took hold early on. He tells us how Steinbrenner lied to friends about his performance on his high school track team and observes that today's owner is fond of bragging that he sang in the Williams Glee Club with Stephen Sondheim--though the famed composer was never a member of the group.

His bravado in telling the press that he had floored two insulting Dodger fans in a hotel elevator during last year's World Series seems to reflect the same willingness to trade the truth for attention. No one, after all, ever found the fans Steinbrenner claims to have punched out. Schaap accounts for the "phantom punch" by suggesting that the bruised fist the owner raised as proof of his triumph actually resulted from Steinbrenner's striking the elevator wall himself, enraged after the Bombers' loss.

Through it all, Steinbrenner emerges as a man who has never had real friends--or cared to. What he really craves is respect, and fear. As Steinbrenner himself once noted when asked about his breeding farm for horses: "Horses are great. They never complain, and they can't talk to sports writers and tell them what a bum the owner is."

ALL OF WHICH is very illuminating and funny; Schaap's diagnosis of what makes George rant and rave does make sense. Yet amidst all the stories and jokes, Schaap fails to address questions that the presence in the sports world of men like Steinbrenner has raised. Those who deride Steinbrenner tend to rail on him for two activities: meddling in on-the-field decisions, and jacking up baseball salaries to an insane level. With his general mockery of Steinbrenner, Schaap suggests that he blames the Yankee owner for both trends.

And without belaboring the point--for Schaap's biography is enjoyable for its sarcastically anecdotal humor--that's not quite fair. Certainly, no one can excuse Steinbrenner's uninformed meddling with the finest baseball organization in history. But calling him to task for doling out high salaries seems misguided. Until baseball's players and owners iron out more realistic wage guidelines--don't hold your breath--owners will inevitably be tempted to pay for a quality ballclub. Steinbrenner's boorish histrionics may make his bidding wars unusually distateful, but other owners have proven themselves just as willing to trade cash for home runs and RBIs.

The irony surrounding Steinbrenner, then, is that in bringing a winner to New York, his petulance has made winning seem crass. That, to all who cherish the Yankees, not only as winners but as sportsmen, seems a sorry perversion of a proud tradition.