Today: Muted Local Media Trades Ad Bucks For Integrity, Views Royals Glass As Half Full

Does anytbody around these parts have the stones to take on David Glass?

Sure doesn’t look that way. With the Kansas City Royals locked into a neverending nosedive, you’d think the town’s top providers of news and sports would be all over the team’s owner to shape up or ship out. But funny thing, everybody’s too busy harvesting the team’s ad dollars to belly up to the tell-it-like-it-is bar.

Everybody who’s anybody, anyway.

Major media with the clout – but not the will – to begin the drum beat. of disatisfaction. The lack of that leadership at 18th and Grand, for example, renders the town largely voiceless and helps insure KC’s status quo as Mudville, USA. A state that will continue for years or until owner David Glass’s death or a financial reversal forcing him to sell the team.

Enter lifelong, dedicated baseball and Royals fan Andy Lewellen.

"I mean, when the Yankees come to town there’s only maybe two Royals players that would even make the roster of their team," says the co-owner of The Well and Lew’s in Waldo.. "And neither one of them would be a starter."

So why go to the games then?

"I still go because they’re a Kansas City team and I know it’s important for the city to support our team," Lewellen says. "But I mean, we have not been competitive forever. I think the way the Royals draw now is unbelieveable for how bad they are."

Lewellen, you may recall, is the rascal who blew the lid off of the Royals "Buck Night" shrunken hot dog controversy two seasons back. After the team quietly switcherooed its fan-friendly franks for Sharpie-sized, teeny-weeny weenies.

Lewellen cried foul here on KC Confidential, sports talk radio ran with it and the Royals backed down and brought back the full size dogs.

Well, he’s about to cry foul again only this time the stakes are far higher…

Can the Royals ever field a successful baseball team while David Glass owns the team?

"No," Lewellen says emphatically. "And I would say it’s the Wal-Mart philosophy that’s destroying Kansas City baseball. I blame the Glass family 110 percent. David Glass has the money to sign 2 or 3 guys to turn this organization around and he just doesn’t want to do it. If he did that, we’d be like the Twins and we’d make the playoffs every two or four years. And that’s all Kansas City wants."

 

http://www.mb-kc.com/
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25 Responses to Today: Muted Local Media Trades Ad Bucks For Integrity, Views Royals Glass As Half Full

  1. smartman says:

    Mudville?
    More like Turdville. Mudville would be an improvement. Andy’s part of the problem when he should be part of the solution. Don’t go to the games, don’t spend money on merch. Call the Royals sponsors and tell them you won’t buy their products or services as long as they support the Royals. Don’t have the games on in your bars. When the support dries up and the cash flow comes to a screeching halt David Glass will either sell or make substantial improvements. The WalMart way is to do as little as possible until you absolutely, positively have to. Until then maintaining the current status quo is perfectly fine with Mr. Glass

  2. c'mon now says:

    You know, Lee Judge analyzes EVERY game, and doesn’t sugarcoat it at all. Therefore your statement doesn’t even come close to being true. So you could at least make a STAB at doing some research. You know, as a courtsey to integrity and all. Hell, here are three examples I found in five minutes.

    http://mellinger.kansascity.com/entries/royals-will-be-bad-maybe-not-bad-some-my-hand-raised-thought/

    http://mellinger.kansascity.com/entries/emptying-notebook-after-week-royals-spring-training/

    and everything at http://royals.kansascity.com/ which is Lee Judge’s site.

  3. Hearne says:

    I’ll stand corrected….in part
    I almost used a Judge cartoon bagging on Glass in this post. However, a lone cartoonist cannot carry the load, can’t do the heavy lifting that the sportswriters, columnists and opinion/editorial section can and should be doing.

    Instead, they plod along with headlines like the one atop today’s Sports Daily section:

    “Mix it up, lefty. Royals southpaw Tim Collins seems a lock for the bullpen, but the team would like him to throw more off-speed pitches.”

    To me, that’s fiddling while Rome burns…

  4. Cliffy says:

    Sorry the Royals won’t advertise with you, Hearne. That sucks.

  5. Markus Aurelius says:

    For a second I thought this was a Greg Hall post and then had to double-check the byline when I got to the “With the Kansas City Royals locked into a neverending nosedive….” sentence. Seriously, Hearne, please stick to the things that you know something about. Sports does not appear to be one of them.

    There have been plenty of critical comments about David Glass and how the franchise has been run. You don’t hear as many critical comments right now because everyone knows the plan, understands the plan and it is too early to know the results. Certainly we seeing the results in our farm system but it takes time for that to trickle up to the big league club. Rest assured that if this coming wave of players fails to compete for a division title, or management does a poor job of supplementing the roster of young talent with veterans, you will hear the local sports media howl.

  6. Hearne Christopher says:

    Thanks, Cliffy! But maybe one of their Google ads will find its way to the site.

  7. mr brown says:

    The beat
    I’m wondering with the shift of hearne over to the Royals beat (will you be joining them on the road the way the Star does?) who is going to take over the new small Fiat car beat….you miss a day there you miss a lot

  8. John says:

    Mellinger and Lee?
    I think Hearne should have rephrased the question. Does anyone in the city with some name recognition or clout, have the stones to take on David Glass. No Offence, but Mellinger and Lee just don

  9. Angry man says:

    I treid to not post …but
    A couple of times today I had to scroll past that fkn picture of that fkn asshole Glass…. and i ignored it….. and i did not post about how I am finished with the Royals… fk them.. I DID NOT SAY IT BEFORE!!!! BUT I WILL NOW…

    actually i will ask….
    I ask the peanut gallery here…. am I the only one who want to SEE THAT PICTURE AND WANTS TO GRAB THAT PIECE OF SHIT BEAK NOSE MOTHER FUCKER AND BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF HIS CHEAP ASS RUINING MY ROYALS ASS!!! fk him, and fk the Royals, and i have watched them lose happily for years, but allowing Zach to leave…….was the last straw, it shows that they can not keep talnet happy…. and it is based on being cheeep piecse of dog shit. THE LIST OF WORLD SERIES PLAYERS VERY YEARS IS LONG AND WIDE…I AM SICK OF IT!!! IA MSICK OF SEEING MY PLAYERS IN THE WORLDS SERIES WITH MY TEAM…EVERY FKN YEARS…..WE HAD THE TALENT …GLASS LET THEM GO…

    Miinesota is a small market team, but seomhow they keep Joe Mauer happy….BUT NOT GL;ASS!!! NO….BUTTTTT NOOOOOO!! NOT FKN GLASS… IWANNA PUCH THAT FUCK IN THE FACE SO HARD MY HAND COME OUT THE BACK OF HIS HEAD….FK THAT CHEASP TEAM RUINING PEICE OIF SHIT.

    NOW I GOT NO MLB AND NO NFL!!!! THANSK YOU BILLIONAIRE CHEEP FKRS!!!!! THANKS A ALOT!!!

    and that is why I scrolled past with out saying anythng all day.

  10. Hearne Christopher says:

    I’m talking about the Star and other major media getting after Glass and trying to make it happen. Yeah, I’ve heard criticism, seen it. But 90-plus percent of the time – particularly in the newspaper – they’re merely going through the sports reporting motions as though any of it truly matters.

  11. Hearne Christopher says:

    Here’s what I think; Mellinger could bolster his rep as a guy not afraid to take Glass on. And hammer the point.

    In no small part, that’s what Whitlock did with Carl Peterson. He demonized him, bullied Carl into the ropes and pummeled him for – what? – 10 years or something.

    Sam could demonstrate further – he’s done damn well to date – that he’s no kiss butt JoPo. And he could do it without stooping to Whitlock’s level of merely pimping the readership.

  12. chuck says:

    The Royals are terrible EVERY year.
    you can hate Glass all ya want (I do), but he is makin 20 million a year with a product that he has NO incentive to improve.

    He was rich when he bought the team, and it has been a great investment.

    Angry man is right. I seriously think, seriously, that Kansas City Citizens could turn David Glass into the Attorney General in Mo.

    Really, if enough folks, citizens, who are taxpayers, get on the Att Gen’s ass about an incessantly shitty product, and non stop lies over decades and decades, the fuckin rich boy will stop counting his money, at least long enough to answer the fuckin form letter he gets from Jeff City.

    Check out that picture of David Glass. He is obviously a vampire. Pound a financial stake into his heart. Why for fucks sake would you buy that product, relate to and identify with a gutless fuck like David Glass who embarrasses the city EVERY FUCKIN year on a national stage?

    If Glaze, with his galactic ego, owned the team, he would bet his last penny to win.

    Glass is like a Terminator T 1000.

    He will not stop making money.

    He will not be embarrassed.

    He doesn’t feel pain.

    Clark Hunt is just as bad, but luckier. The Chiefs are in the bottom 5 re: payroll EVERY YEAR. He is a pathetic salute to primogeniture and station.

    Fuck ’em both.

    They make Kansas City look 2nd rate, maybe 3rd rate, and have been really good at it for a long time.

  13. HATER says:

    I WANNA BEAT HIS FACE IN
    Scrolling by that fucking picture again today… I just want to grab his fucking chicken neck and pummel his fucking face, I want to punch his face in until it is nothing but jeely sitting in his skull cap. I really hate that mutha fucker..

    I am done watching the Royals, I realy am. I watched for years and years, not minding that they lost, but after Zach was not kept happy and is not gone along with 2 full rosters of world series other players, I am done ,enough is enough. No more small market excuses, the Twins can do it, we could to, But Glass is not the man for the job. Did I mention I want to smash his face in? I want to take out all of my pissedoffness on him, he is a useless piece of shit and deserves to feel the pain.

  14. Uncle23 says:

    Great Fan Are You?
    You can’t even spell Zack Greinke’s name correctly.
    Loser

  15. Kerouac says:

    THOSE CANNOT REMEMBER THE PAST ARE CONDENMED REPEAT IT?
    It could be worse KC. Really. And ‘once upon a’ it was, arguably. Or was it?

    Different guys, different eras, different tacks… same result: no winners on the field or in popular vote; fan apathy reigned supreme. KC Athletics Charlie Finley and KC Royals David Glass are reviled, if not equally. In retrospect however, it seems to me that one guy tried harder to entertain the fans.

    In more ways than one Charlie turned a baseball stadium into a zoo – like behind the outfield, where he kept his namesake Charlie O the Mule – an outfield that varied as he moved the fences in one year and moved them out another… he brought us an giant electronic rabbit that delivered baseballs to the ump… he outfitted the grounds crew in space suits… he fired Mangers, & then to be equitable he in turn fired broadcasters – yearly… he changed the teams colors from red, white & blue to green & yellow; surprisingly?, that too didn’t work.

    He tried the opposite tack Lamar Hunt was successful at: Finley wanted to move the team ‘TO’ Dallas from KC… he was denied by other owners (of note, in 1965 with Hunt’s gate turnstile$ turning over as rapidly as a Cuban dictator’s reign, his lead football man Don Klosterman suggested the Chiefs might move to LA… Don soon found ‘himself’ in Texas – fired by Hunt, hired by the Houston Oilers; birds of a feather sometimes flock together, but not always, & so circa 2011 I’m reminded that it appears the younger Hunt ‘Clark’ has an bit of Finley in him as concern$, but that’s another take for another time if not necessarily another city not named KC, the future.)

    Back to Charlie O. Finley.

    He had one of his players (ss Bert Campaneris) play EVERY position on the field in a single game… he also signed pitcher Satchel Paige (then age 60?) who proved to be as good (or better than) anyone else on the A’s team (at least for one night) as he pitched three scoreless innings.

    After the 1967 season, he was finally allowed to move the team to Oakland, & there won 3 consecutive World Series Championships, leading to the inevitable ‘what might have been’ second-guessing by KC types.

    Years later it was reported that A’s players played so well because they ‘hated’ Finley – with a Patton- er, patent passion. In a contract dispute with OF Reggie Jackson (fresh off a 47 home run season), he threatened to send Mr. October back to the minors. He wanted to buy C Johnny Bench from the Reds for $1 million (in 1970 money)… yet, he also tried to sell his own players (Commissioner Kuhn denied him & a court later affirmed Kuhn.) Finley never offered season tickets for sale – and – during those early 1970’s technological years (cable? internet? LOL x2) his team’s flagship radio station the midst their Championship seasons was powered by all 10-watts of it’s University of California Berkeley limit – which made it listenable up to as much as about 10 miles from Oakland – but no further.

    Finley had a George Steinbrenner appetite but in current day funds a Texas Ranger or Frank McCourt Dodgers means. If you’ve ever heard the television commercial “it’s all about the O” reference a well-known retailer, then you know that in Charlie O’s case, was all about the dOugh.

    Unlike the current incarnation KC baseball however, Charles Finley eventually delivered. Et tu, Glass?

  16. Kyle Rohde says:

    Who would you like them to sign?
    I’m so tired of people making this same boring statement. Yes, Glass did a crappy job of ownership with this team, until he hired Dayton Moore. Since then, the Royals have done things the right way, by investing a ton in Latin America and the minor league system. The Royals will never have Yankees or Red Sox money – remember, KC is the 2nd smallest market in the major leagues, after Milwaukee. Read Posnanski’s column in SI this week – the Royals have a universally-regarded superstar minor league system, one of the best in history. In the next three years, they will be a damn good team. Until then, you’ll just have to suck it up and wait, remembering that other cities have gone longer without a winner than you – Pittsburgh and Milwaukee to name two.

    I ask all of you who say “Glass should spend money!” – who would you like the Royals to sign? Do you think Cliff Lee, Adrian Gonzales, Albert Pujols, Carl Crawford, etc. would sign here based on this team’s chances of winning in 2011? Hell no. They could have maybe gotten Jayson Werth if they’d outbid the Nationals, but that signing is one of the worst in history and I’m glad the Royals didn’t get it on it. You don’t win in sports by relying on free agency – you win by building up your own system, like Green Bay just did in the NFL (Charles Woodson being the only significant free agent signing) and Tampa Bay has in baseball. Even the Yankees and Red Sox have lots of homegrown talent – the core of the Yankees for 15 years has been Jeter, Rivera, Posada, right? All homegrown talent.

  17. Rick in PV says:

    Kyle, someday never comes for a Royals fan. The farm system will never fill the gap as long as we let homegrown, developed superstars like Greinke get away. That was the last straw for me, a lifelong fan. The Royals will get no more of my money until I see a competitive team on the field.

  18. chuck says:

    I can’t believe I am saying this, but Kerouac is right
    on all of his comments.

    He did forget the sheep on the other side of the fence in right field and orange baseballs.

  19. Kerouac says:

    KEROUAC DIDN’T FORGET
    he’s merely ‘trying to’…

  20. Kerouac says:

    BTW
    Based on KCC’s picture of him, if Glass added a couple of fangs he’d be a ‘dead’ ringer for Bela Lugosi aka ‘Dracula’…

  21. HATER says:

    FUCK YOU UNCLE23
    Fuck you punk, I will smash your face in too. I was a bigger fan you could ever imagine to be you worthless piece of shit…so go fuck uourself telling me what about anything based on spelling…. you are god shit…spelling is not as important as the fan they lost in me, But you can not grasp that yiou are too fkn stupid….so fuck you…..did you get that? FUCK YOU. I am pissed I WAS A LOOOOOONG TERM ROYALS FAN AND GLASS FUCKED ME …..TRADING ZACH ZAK ZACK…WHO GIVES A FUCK HOW YOU SPELL IT…….. I AM PISSEDS!!!!

  22. Hater says:

    What Rick said
    Of course a more cival way of putting would be-
    ” The farm system will never fill the gap as long as we let homegrown, developed superstars like Greinke get away. That was the last straw for me, a lifelong fan. The Royals will get no more of my money until I see a competitive team on the field”

    Thank you Rick, perfectly said.

  23. Rainbow Man says:

    winning cures all ills
    All the Royals need to do is be relevant for the playoffs in August and everyone will love Glass and Moore. I think they will get there. It is still the best entertainment dollar spent in KC for the value.

  24. HATER says:

    YOU ARE WRONG
    YOU ARE WORNG, I do nnot take getting off the Royals band wagon lightly. If they make the playoffs (AND THEY WONT) I will not be back until long after I see Glass doing the right things. I do not jump on easy, I do jump off easy… it takes years for me to care, there is too much going on in life to care about millionaires and their fkn toys.

    I am sick to death of seeing my exRoyals players in the world series EVERY FKN YEARS!!!!

    I am not kidding, you look at the teams in the World Series for the last 10 years and there are a couple of great Royals players on every them. That tells me that if Glass had kept all these players, versus being the minor league suplly line to the entieir league, we would have at least been in the post season.

    You are also wrong about best entertainment dollar. For the results the Chiefs and Royals are a horrible vlaue. Fk hunt Fk Glass…they can both die and go away and move the fkn teams. ..I dont give a fk anymore

    WE (ME INCLUDED) WERE/ ARE THE BEST FANS IN ANY CITY IN ANY LEAGUE (SHOW ME BETTER)…BUT WHEN IT IS CLEAR THE OWNERS DONT CARE, WHY SHOULD I (WE)??

  25. Jackson says:

    Have you ever been fooled by images that look real but are actually Photoshopped? You need some Image Analysis software to help you detect them. But such kind of software is usually pretty expensive. Instead, some online fake detection tool can help on this for free. Like Photoshopped Image Killer. PSKiller extracts JPEG quantization tables from your image and compares them with those in database. If they match tables of Photoshop, image will be classifier as Photoshopped. Exif tags of JPEG are utilized as well.

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