A quick check of the Kansas City Star…
When baseball buff Craig Glazer told me he hadn’t read Sam Mellinger‘s front page interview with Royals owner David Glass Sunday, I figured he probably wasn’t alone. And while I’m bullish on Mellinger, I think the story could have been reduced to a tiny fraction of its size.
Here’s why. Because who really cares about the minutia Mellinger had to wade through just to get the interview?
That’s just the way the sports journalism game has to be played with an out-of-town owner getting along just fine who doesn’t really give a rat’s ass what folks here think of him. As long as it’s nothing wildly embarrassing, that is. I mean, think about it. What sort of a presence does Glass really have in this town?
Heck, his son Dan Glass – the team prez – is a nice enough dude, but who knows or hears much of anything about him? And he lives here.
A former Star publisher once described Dan Glass to me as "nebbish."
I didn’t really need to look it up to understand what he meant, but I did. And here’s what it means; "a pitifully ineffectual, luckless and timid person."
That’s the kinda guy leading the charge for the lowest paid team in Major League Baseball?
So back to the interview; here’s all you really need to know: "David Glass is cheap. And greedy." That’s how it starts.
"He’s viewed by many Royals fans as the team’s absentee owner, satisfied with banking profits from Major League Baseball’s growing revenue-sharing program even while overseeing the game’s worst franchise."
The rest you can live without.
I would remind that Glass made Sports Illustrated’s Five Worst Owners list the season before last.
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Scary Guy Alert
See the pic of Bob Dole in the the WWII Memorial story on the front page today?
Oh my gosh, how scary does he look?
Lon Chaney Sr. in the original Phantom of the Opera scary – that’s how scary. Hey, everybody gets older – and Dole’s pushing 88 – but that "just dug up" look he’s sporting looks like the product of way too many facelifts. Just saying…
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Nebraska Furniture Mart & Reverse Psychology
Speaking of elderly, how old does Nebraska Furniture Mart think Star readers are? The NFM’s massive "Senior Discount Days" ad offers a "senior discount price" to folks who can prove they’re at least 55.
Hold it…55 and you’re a senior?
Most of the defs I find describe seniors as "elderly" or of "advanced age" and usually 65 and up. And if you buy into the "50 is the new 40" thinking, how many Boomers are going to race out to KCK, flash their IDs & declare themselves oldsters?
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Blonde Ambition Update
Anybody else notice Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill working her old black media magic on the Star‘s newsies?
McCaskill took a major league PR hit recently for owing more than $300,000 in back property taxes on her private plane. Naturally, she blamed it on her husband, telling the media she told him to "sell the damn plane" and wouldn’t set foot on it again.
Flash forward to Monday’s front pager with the generous headline, "Senator’s air travel actually cost less." According to records "reviewed" – as in fed – to the Star. Never underestimate the power of a McCaskill press schmooze in KC.
I found something funner…a phony Craig’s List ad that popped up after McCaskill’s tax bust.
"This damn Plane – $287,000" it begins. "Trying to get rid of this shit bird pain in the ass. Husband flew me around in this POS and we got some good life and laughs out of it at someone else’s expense, before he stopped paying taxes on this migraine on wheels. How an accountant forgets that you have to pay personal property taxes on airplanes is beyond me, but if you want to avoid sitting back with the peons in coach, this is the deal for you."
pretty funny coming from someone who made a career of being fed stuff and regurgitating it as columns
Geezus Leave Dole Alone
The dude lost use of a limb in WW2, served Kansas at the US Capitol for a lifetime. One of the most famous legislators of the 20th century. I don’t give a crap how a 90 something looks. He gets a salute from me. I just don’t get the ripping the personal appearance thing… especially 90 year olds.
Hey Leave Dole Alone
Bob Dole was and is great man and deserves a lot of espect.
Remember if we live to be 88 or more we will look a little rough as well.
Plus I think he looks good for a guy who was almost dead at one from fighting to protect us.
Guess that’s why everybody was so pleased with what I wrote about them all the time, huh?
He’s 87, dude. Not ripping him, just reflecting my shock not having seen him in a couple years! My 93 year-old across-the-street neighbor (who never had a facelift) looks a whole lot more, uh, natural
hey i am rounding up
Oh.. You win Hearne… 87… not 90 something. Sorry.
Glass
Had David Glass not bought the Royals, they’d be in Denver or Charlotte and KC would have no baseball team.
You prefer that to what we have now?
Nebbishco
Sam’s gonna get his own bobblehead day at the K if he keeps tossing David Glass salad like that. Can a HOT LUNCH(google it) be far behind?
Better description of Dan Glass is STONER. Dude smokes more weed than the KTA during the fall burn season. Another classic example of daddy propping up sonny boy cause sonny boy ain’t even qualified to be a greeter at Walmart. Dan Glass should be the poster boy for retroactive abortion. You gotta give David credit. The Kennedy’s woulda shipped Dan off to a “special” place.
Claire McCaskill makes Gloria Squitiro look like Jenna Jameson. She’s got more faces than Eve and still suffers from lack of personality disorder. Claire’s the reason that Missouri is called the Show Me State, ’cause people in Missouri are too stupid to figure it out on their own.
You can bet nobody’s sniffing her seat after she leaves the Senate chamber.
Looks to me like the Bobber is makin’ one of those funny faces you make when you’re tryin’ to hold your nut in. I know it, you know it and the people of the United States know it.
Wonder how long it will be before NFM starts selling caskets? Wonder if they’ll offer odor and stain protection too?
That’s speculation. Who knows who would have bought the team and/or what they’d have done with it if Glass had not bought it.
Glass
You have a short memory Hearne. Go check your Star Archive in your basement. The auction conducted for the team yielded no local bidders. A second auction open to out of towners yielded only 3 bidders, Lamar Hunt ($25 million), Miles Prentice, and Glass. Hunt tried to steal the team with a low bid and Prentice was involved with so many nefarious connections, MLB would have never approved him as an owner. If Glass hadn’t stepped up, the team would have been sold to Charlotte or Denver interests. Glass was Kauffman’s hand-picked successor. We wouldn’t have baseball were it not for David Glass.
What Ptolemy Said
Ditto
We wouldn’t have baseball were it not for David Glass
I’m sorry but I don’t call that crap out at the K baseball.
Kansas City T-Bones baseball is better games to watch any day.
redemption
One thing i love about sports. Winning cures all. The Royals make the playoffs… Glass suddenly becomes the beloved owner who nurtured the team when no one else would…
Still speculation, dude. I remember it well, right down to and including Miles Prentice. How’s that for a flashback? The fact remains had Glass’s deal not gone thru, nobody really knows who else might have stepped up or what efforts might have been undertaken and whether the team would have moved.
I remember the Star reporter who was covering all of this, my pal Charles Crumpley – now the editor of the Los Angeles Business Journal. I was following all of this very closely thru Charles, who made Lamar Hunt really mad when he outed Hunt for low balling the team while acting like KC’s baseball savior.
Again, who knows what might have happened? Nobody does is the answer.
I remember Hunt telling me in no uncertain terms the last thing he wanted or would do is buy another MLS team. Bot that long before he rescued the Dallas team by buying it.
See above
Here’s my question, Rainbow:
Can you imagine someone in as high profile a position as David Glass – or even his son Dan who lives here – being as low profile as those guys? Where’s the civic leadership, the local presence. Heading up the United Way drive. Speaking out on the E-Tax. Chairing some gala charity fundraiser.
Anything?
Outside of the fact that they own the Royals and grant a couple interviews a year I think Harley has a higher profile. I mean, really.
Good Point Hearne
Well Harley has a life for one reason. Maybe isn’t as rich but dude does have a life.
The Glass family in my book does nothing for the Kansas City area. For that matter not to sure they really give a damn either. Dan is only living here because Daddy told him he had to only so David wouldn’t have to.
But at same time you would think it would bother the Glass Family to have about the worst team in MLB. But then guess it must not either.
And leave us not forget another stellar Royals ownership choice made by Ewing Kauffman, Avron Fogelman. Until just two or three years ago an apartment complex in OP called Point Royal still described itself as a Fogelman property.
thanks for bringing me up….
glass is a businessman. Make no mistake about that. He is notgoign to invest
money that he can’t make back in the team. but it seems he gives the reins to the
gm and the manager to run the team.
They paid big bucks for some players and we saw what happened. It din’t work.
Now they feel they have to groom players within the organization like what the
twins have done. No more big salary free agents.
If you’ve ever run a business (I’ve run 2) you know that when the pay back is
going to be hard and the return on investment is going to be tough…you have
to control expenses.
Hearne…why don’t you go hire Sam Mellinger (match his star salary)…hire
jopo at a higher salary than si gives him….maybe hire 2 new york times
columnists for the staff with the epxectation that readership shoots upward
and hence more advertisers will come on board and you’ll make money
based on a premonition that you can bring these heavy hitters on and
turn a profit. I knw you’re cheap and you wouldn’t do it because even though
you might have a better lineup of writers…more readers….that may not
connotate into making money because you’re not sure revenue will go
up or that you’ll actually have more readers. So you don’t invest the money
in salaries.
Same with glass. He can draw 1.6-2 million this year…get his mlb money…
keep salaries low….watch to see if any of the young kids break thru and not
have a big expense sheet to pay. It makes sense on his part.
The other way didn’t work…most top players arent coming to kc to play
even if glass matches other teams salaries…he’s having to give away tickets
and promtoions…..so the way its structured he has a huge upsdie..
and is stil sure to make a profit.
He’s a businessman…doesn’t like the risk….tried it…didnt work…is trying this
route with young home grown players…and you know…it just might work.
I knwo weve had loser teams….but glass will stick here with this program
and lets hope it works out…..they have something good starting this season..
elts see what happens.
I’m not a big baseball fan theses days – who is (I know you and Craig) – but didn’t they have a buncha young stars back in the Johnny Damon era they let slip away?
@hearne.. it ain’t starlight, but…
The Glasses fund a HUGE community entertainment venue.. The Kansas City Royals. They are putting their money where their mouth is, while everyone else rents a tux and gets trashed at Jazzoo… thinking they are benefactors.
You are right… The Glasses are somewhat invisible in the KC Charity Ball set– Which I actually like. That group has done more damage to this segregated cow town than any other entity. They don’t use Westport, they don’t use Downtown, they don’t need public transit… so they block progress.. and head off to Palm Beach or Martha’s Vineyard.
forgiveness
To my original point.. If the Royals keep doing what they are doing… Glass becomes a HERO.