November 10, 2005
Foot Dragging
There's still no end in sight for the sale of the Washington Nationals.
"All these people have spent an enormous amount of time, money, effort," Selig told reporters at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells, Calif., where baseball general managers were meeting. "And they certainly deserve one interview. I've enjoyed it. I've done five groups so far. I have three to go, and I'm trying to do those as quickly as possible."
Oh please. Selig is going to pick the group that most likely will agree with Bud in running major league baseball. That's what he did in Boston, after all. Bud knows who is going to be the new owner of the Nationals, he just hasn't let us know.
This has Frank Robinson upset:
"It's not fair to this ballclub and this organization to be put in this position for the coming season because we're behind on moves and things we can do and approaching players, the free agent market, either signing free agents or even really seriously talking to them," Robinson said. "Just overall, the feeling and the atmosphere around this ballclub is that we're at a disadvantage."
He's right. With Bowden more interested in the Red Sox job than his own, with no idea about the size of the 2006 budget, what can the team do? Even the coaches are in limbo:
"It's not as frustrating for me," he said of the uncertain situation. "It's really just not fair for the coaching staff. These guys depend on these jobs, and they just can't go and get another job. . . . To hang them out there and to say, 'We don't know what's going to happen here. You feel free to go look for another job.' That's worse than saying, 'You're fired,' because if they're fired, then they know they have to go look for a job. . . . It's a very unfair situation here as far as that's concerned. It's even worse than in Montreal."
But MLB is getting their big paycheck out of the situation, and if there's one less team in a good position to compete, that's good for the 29 others. Washington is learning first hand how much Bud cares about the health of baseball in their city.
On a side note, congratulations to Frank Robinson on his Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Posted by David Pinto at
09:03 AM
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I couldn't agree with you more, David, and in fact, you beat me to it. I was going to opine on this matter. MLB seems to be orchestrating this sloooow-paced sale in such a way that ensures the Nationals with their new owners have no shot at any free agents, no shot at any top-line executives (except Theo) or coaches, and no shot at putting a viable player development plan in place for the 2006 season. This should be enough of an insult to the game and the city of Washington that Bud should seriously re-evaluate his term as Commissioner.
Dude, Bud should have seriously re-evaluated his term as Commissioner a long time ago...
Well, yeah, Adam, you're right. That's the point of my new blog. Let me rephrase: We should just add to this to ever-growing list of things that should convince anyone concerned about the well-being of baseball to replace Bud Selig will someone maybe a little more neutral.
1. Surprising to see Robinson, a former league president and a good company man for MLB, going public. Then again, Robinson's a hard guy to keep muzzled; good for him.
2. Shouldn't Selig realize that the one city whose fans can't be trifled with is the one with Congress in it? Bigger businesses than baseball have lived to regret not kissing up to DC.
"Selig is going to pick the group that most likely will agree with Bud in running major league baseball. That's what he did in Boston, after all."
Totally agree. One of things that keeps getting glossed over in the Boston drama is the fact that the group Bud picked to run the Red Sox has an agenda of being "owner-friendly" and "fan-friendly" but definately not "player-friendly". Both the ARod and Pedro negotiations pretty clearly demonstrated that -- with lowball initial offers and attempts to get the players to lower their demands. I keep hoping that they'll work to provide players with perks other than salaries, but I've yet to see it.
Robinson is full of it. He's the one who tried to get MLB umpires fined for using certain words during arguments and he's got the foulest mouth in the major leagues! He's always talked out of both sides of his mouth.
Oh, for the old days when they would have sold the team to the highest bidder...
Mike Greenburg for Commish! He would have solved this problem already!