Monday, September 29, 2003
COLUMNIST AFTERMATH
Just so we have it in our weblog for posterity, here's the columnist backlash from the trading deadline, also from a message board post of mine.
---
steve kelley goes friggin medieval.
the article features such jewels as --
"We'd have liked to have done something," said Gillick, who decided it wasn't important to be in Seattle this week and wrongly decided to try to deal from his home in Toronto.
Gillick tried. But then Jeff Cirillo tries, and he's hitting .210. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays try, but they've won all of 40 games.
and...
"The players deserve more support from the front office. They deserve an ownership group that once, just once, agrees to go toe-to-toe with the Yankees to get a player. They deserve a front office that is as aggressive in the trade market as they are on the field."
lastly...
"...the fans need to be rewarded as much as the players. The Mariners have a responsibility they often dismiss, to the fans who built and paid for Safeco Field. They have a responsibility to the more than 3 million fans who have filled it every season, who have paid $15 to $20 to park and who have spent hundreds of dollars nightly after they've entered the park."
dave andriesen of the p-i about the mariners possibly being thwarted by bowden's remaining front office cronies, bitter three years later over getting the bad end of the griffey trade.
lastly, if there's any one reason to hate howard lincoln, you'll find it in this art thiel article, which features such goodies as...
"We spent a great deal of money to get the team we have (in the off-season), and our need to make moves is much less," [Lincoln] said, sitting in his ballpark office during the game yesterday. "There's got to be some kind of discipline. You can't rise to the bait of, 'You've got to please the fans.' That's not the way to make sound business decisions."
**my note: actually, that is no way to run a business. to not have a contingency plan in place in case you find out you really need something is absolutely NO WAY to run a business. if you run a restaurant and somehow get so many patrons that you run out of clean forks or need to hire an extra dishwasher or something, do you just not hire a dishwasher or not buy more forks, and leave the extra patrons there waiting for stuff to get washed? hell no, you hire the dishwasher or buy more forks. sheesh, any bonehead knows that. if lincoln had no wiggle room at the deadline, they needed to do no more than to let dan wilson go last winter. they didn't truly NEED him, and ben davis is coming into his own. would have gotten them a few million right there.
more from lincoln...
"I have to look from season to season, and I'm not prepared to take inordinate risks. One thing I am not willing to do is put us in a position of an operating loss. I'm not willing to borrow, or ask owners for cash again. If I showed people how far we have to go, the danger points, and all the issues in 2004, I think they'd see why we have to be financially responsible."
**operating loss? you charge $20 for parking, $7 for a beer, $5 for hot dogs, you draw the most fans in the game, the fans are paying for your stadium, you have a sweet cable deal, and you reward the fans with absolutely nothing come july. you, howard lincoln, are a soulless bastard. oh, by the way, thanks for caring so much for us fans.
but the true jewel of this article is from art thiel...
"Once again, baseball can thank its monopoly stars. In most every other business, the customer is always right.'
preach ON.
here's to hoping the a's don't rip off a 43-12 streak like last year and bury the m's.
---
The A's didn't NEED a 43-12 rip to bury the M's this year. They just needed the Mariners (players and brass alike) to drink the lethargy Kool-Aid, and boy, did they pick their poison.
---
steve kelley goes friggin medieval.
the article features such jewels as --
"We'd have liked to have done something," said Gillick, who decided it wasn't important to be in Seattle this week and wrongly decided to try to deal from his home in Toronto.
Gillick tried. But then Jeff Cirillo tries, and he's hitting .210. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays try, but they've won all of 40 games.
and...
"The players deserve more support from the front office. They deserve an ownership group that once, just once, agrees to go toe-to-toe with the Yankees to get a player. They deserve a front office that is as aggressive in the trade market as they are on the field."
lastly...
"...the fans need to be rewarded as much as the players. The Mariners have a responsibility they often dismiss, to the fans who built and paid for Safeco Field. They have a responsibility to the more than 3 million fans who have filled it every season, who have paid $15 to $20 to park and who have spent hundreds of dollars nightly after they've entered the park."
dave andriesen of the p-i about the mariners possibly being thwarted by bowden's remaining front office cronies, bitter three years later over getting the bad end of the griffey trade.
lastly, if there's any one reason to hate howard lincoln, you'll find it in this art thiel article, which features such goodies as...
"We spent a great deal of money to get the team we have (in the off-season), and our need to make moves is much less," [Lincoln] said, sitting in his ballpark office during the game yesterday. "There's got to be some kind of discipline. You can't rise to the bait of, 'You've got to please the fans.' That's not the way to make sound business decisions."
**my note: actually, that is no way to run a business. to not have a contingency plan in place in case you find out you really need something is absolutely NO WAY to run a business. if you run a restaurant and somehow get so many patrons that you run out of clean forks or need to hire an extra dishwasher or something, do you just not hire a dishwasher or not buy more forks, and leave the extra patrons there waiting for stuff to get washed? hell no, you hire the dishwasher or buy more forks. sheesh, any bonehead knows that. if lincoln had no wiggle room at the deadline, they needed to do no more than to let dan wilson go last winter. they didn't truly NEED him, and ben davis is coming into his own. would have gotten them a few million right there.
more from lincoln...
"I have to look from season to season, and I'm not prepared to take inordinate risks. One thing I am not willing to do is put us in a position of an operating loss. I'm not willing to borrow, or ask owners for cash again. If I showed people how far we have to go, the danger points, and all the issues in 2004, I think they'd see why we have to be financially responsible."
**operating loss? you charge $20 for parking, $7 for a beer, $5 for hot dogs, you draw the most fans in the game, the fans are paying for your stadium, you have a sweet cable deal, and you reward the fans with absolutely nothing come july. you, howard lincoln, are a soulless bastard. oh, by the way, thanks for caring so much for us fans.
but the true jewel of this article is from art thiel...
"Once again, baseball can thank its monopoly stars. In most every other business, the customer is always right.'
preach ON.
here's to hoping the a's don't rip off a 43-12 streak like last year and bury the m's.
---
The A's didn't NEED a 43-12 rip to bury the M's this year. They just needed the Mariners (players and brass alike) to drink the lethargy Kool-Aid, and boy, did they pick their poison.
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