Royals offer GM job to Braves' Moore

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http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2460335

 

 

as john lennon would say, let it be

[doughboys_2002 11]

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2460335

as john lennon would say, let it be

Anybody that bothers with the Royals has screwed themselves!

[cmh6476 750]

When Glass bought the team, there had to be some sort of contractual obligations in there that he didn't damage the brand name of Major League Baseball. Well he is, and he should be forced to sell.

 

It's a bumpy ride for GM of struggling Royals

BY JOE POSNANSKI

Knight Ridder Newspapers

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The plane ascends out of LaGuardia, and Allard Baird watches New York grow small through the window. He says: "Nothing in baseball can prepare you for this."

 

He does not know what else to say. At that moment, Allard Baird is the general manager of the Kansas City Royals, but not really. He has been fired in the news media but not face to face. Baird's boss, David Glass, will not talk to him, but Glass does interview general-manager candidates on the hush-hush. Numerous sources have said Glass made an offer to Atlanta's Dayton Moore.

 

Baird's voice mail overflows with rumors. None of those voice mails is from Glass.

 

What would you do? The Royals implode. Loyal employees cry when they see Baird. Others avoid him. Others rage. Still others march like zombies through their days. The Royals players, in the nights after losses, have pleasant dreams of being traded.

 

"Believe me, as bad as you think it might be in this organization," one Royals executive says anonymously, "things right now are much, much worse."

 

Nobody can believe how heartless it all seems. Look, most people around the Royals understood that Baird, after so many losses, would get fired. That's baseball. Had they fired Baird on May 4 - the day Glass first announced that changes were coming - there would have been few complaints, and none at all from Baird himself.

 

But no one - and I mean no one - could imagine the mismanagement, the botching, the historic bungling Glass has made of this. Someday, business majors will study this case in colleges. Glass, instead of firing Baird, has let him dangle for almost a month. He has along the way humiliated a loyal employee, immobilized an organization and made the Royals even more of a laughingstock.

 

Then, incredibly, Glass blames the media for his own ineptness.

 

"All you're doing is writing speculation that is particularly hurtful to Allard Baird," Glass said.

 

I wonder whether that brand of gall is available at Wal-Mart.

 

What would you do? Quit? Coast? Publicly call out your bosses? Allard Baird could no sooner do any of those things than land the plane safely. He may have lost too many games as general manager, but that did not have anything to do with his character. Baird is loyal to his core, which is why in these agonizing weeks, you have not heard him pop off. His employees stay quiet because he asked them to.

 

It's also why for the last five years you have not heard about the meddling of the Glass family. Stories leak out now - stories that Baird still refuses to confirm - stories about sensible Baird trades killed, players high on the draft board ignored because of their price range and exciting long-term deals shattered over a few hundred-thousand dollars.

 

When you hear enough stories like this, you realize that while Baird has made critical mistakes, he never had a chance. No one - not Billy Beane or Branch Rickey - can win with a meddling owner unwilling to spend money. Friends have told Baird to make these things public. Lash back. He will not.

 

"Sure, people have told me to do a lot of different things," Baird says. "But they don't know what it's like to be in my position. I still care very much about this organization. I care about the people in this organization. I'm not going to hurt this organization because I might be angry or whatever. I just won't do that."

 

He does not know what to do. He prepares for a draft he will probably not conduct. He talks daily with manager Buddy Bell and others, though he understands his authority is gone. He suffers through Royals losses - it was 15 of 16 losses coming into Monday - but he knows he is no longer in position to make a difference.

 

"We need closure," he says. "I don't want to lose my job, believe me. I love this job. But this can't go on like this. The organization needs closure."

 

I ask Allard: "Forget the organization for a minute. How do you feel?"

 

I've known Allard Baird for a long time - from before he became general manager. On the day he took the big job, he looked me in the eye and said: "Someday, you'll call for me to be fired."

 

He was right. The Royals had lost too many games, and I wrote it was time to move on. Sometimes in this job, you sting good people.

 

Allard said after that: "Hey, that's business."

 

"How do you feel?" I ask. This is personal.

 

"I don't know how I feel," he said. "I've been so busy trying to keep this thing going. I haven't stopped to think about it much. I guess that's good. I'm sure I'll be angry at some point. But right now, I just don't know."

 

The plane descends through the clouds into a Kansas City rain. At the airport, Baird grabs his suitcase and heads to the office. During the season, he had always ended our conversations with the same phrase: "Let's get a win tonight."

 

He does not say that as he leaves Monday. Instead, he says: "Maybe something will happen today."

 

He does not mean something good. Then he rides off in the rain.