Definition of "influential person" [influential person]

• A person whose actions and opinions strongly influence the course of events (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "Whether it was throwing fireballs at batters in his youth—or threatening to do so; see 2003, when he pointed at his temple in the direction of the New York dugout—outdueling Roger Clemens with a seventeen-strikeout masterpiece on a Friday night in September ten years earlier; or announcing to all at a press conference the day before Game 2 that he was the… ahem… “most influential person to ever perform at Yankee Stadium” yeah, this is another one of those moments where my face is twisted in disbelief; though I must agree that he goes alongside Reggie Miller and Tom Brady on our modern-day public enemies list, he was always doing or saying something to piss New Yorkers off."
• "W.th his characteristic trick of humorous mock-humility, Arnold wrote to a friendly reviewer who praised these lectures on translating Homer: “I am glad any influential person should call attention to the fact that there was some criticism in the three lectures; most people seem to have gathered nothing from them except that I abused F.W. Newman, and liked English hexameters.”"