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Spring is now upon us and while I'm not a huge baseball fan, I do follow it a bit. Some thoughts as the the season gets ready to ramp up.
The Vet is now rubble
Greg (the Bull) Luzinski pushed the button that began the demolition of Veterans Stadium. After Connie Mack (where I'd seen my first pro baseball game), The Vet was an enormous (some later called it cavernous I believe) place.
It was functional and a bit ugly but I'll still miss it.
The Cubs as favorites?
ESPN's Peter Gammons and Howard Reynolds named Chicago as the odds on favorite to not only win the central, but to represent the National League come fall. What's up with that?
(Mc)Courting disaster
One of the pleasures I look forward to each week is page three of the Saturday LA Times Sport section. I get a feel for what's happened this week in sports and don't have to worry about bumping into Simers on page 2. Yesterday the page was full of invective towards Jamie McCourt, wife of the new Dodger owner Frank McCourt, vice chairman of the organization and completely clueless about the business of sports ownership (and PR for that matter).
She said he was unavailable to answer questions despite the fact she was being interviewed while they were driving back to Dodgertown together. "I can't speak for Frank. No one asked me if I thought we should get a hitter or not," she said. "You probably have to talk to Frank. This is bad because you guys remember everything and you write everything down."
Yes, I'm piling on but I just can't believe these people are that stupid. Given Jamie's ability to handle the press, it's little wonder that Derrick Hall ran away in terror.
The team has no offense (even on paper), they were middle of the road last year and appear on the way toward repeating. They did the right thing the wrong way with Gagne (a PR gaffe). They have a bright new GM with little experience and yet are driving away all the senior executives they did have and the new owners don't seem to know how to communicate with the staff they still have.
Meanwhile, Jamie was whining about ticket sales and attitudes. You can't sell high priced boxes to a crappy product (which would you buy if trying to impress clients, a corporate box with the Dodgers or Angels?) and your sales staff attitude isn't going to change because you demand that it must do so. It's only a guess, but I'd estimate that the attitude took a serious drop this week with the statements made by the ludicrous vice-chairperson.
Like him or not, Mark Cuban provides an interesting example of an owner who is spending the money, living (and dying) with the fans and players day to day, and fights his own peculiar PR battle on an ongoing basis. As Cuban pointed out in his interview with Dan Gillmor, sports isn't business the way business people are accustomed to doing it.
Posted by Dave at March 21, 2004 11:00 AM