Talk about can’t get any respect…
The consistently down on their luck Kansas City Royals sorry state made the cover of USA TODAY‘s sports section under the headline: “Royals Flushed With Frustration.”
The story begins with former Royals wunderkind Bret Saberhagen who won Game Seven of the 1985 World Series.
“Today he is 50, balding and in disbelief,” USA Today writes.
“It’s crazy, just crazy,” Saberhagen says. “I mean 30 years have blown by just like that. The team used to be in the playoffs almost every year. And now, with the wild cards, you’d expect them to get there periodically. I mean, sometime, right? It just hasn’t worked out lately.
“Lately?” Saberhagen laughs after pausing. “How’s that for an understatement?”
Not being much of a baseball fan, I found one aspect of the story fascinating and don’t know how well it’s recalled here locally.
And that’s that former Cardinals and Royals Hall Of Fame manager Whitey Herzog puts the lion’s share of the blame for the state of the team squarely on the shoulders of owner and former Walmart honcho David Glass.
Because in 1998 when baseball commissioner Bud Selig offered Glass the opportunity to move the franchise to the National League Glass declined.
“The Milwaukee Brewers accepted. The rest is history,” Herzog tells USA Today. “That’s one of the most major mistakes in the history of ownership. It was natural to go to the National League. They would have had a natural rivalry with the Cardinals. The Cubs would be sellouts. People would come from Denver. And they wouldn’t have to worry about their offense.”
So why didn’t Glass take Selig up on the no-brainer offer?
“When I talked to David about it, he said, ‘Everybody wanted to see the Yankees.’ I said, ‘Was there anyone complaining if you went to the NL?’ He said, ‘We got about a hundred letters,'” Herzog continues. “I said, ‘Jesus, you’re running Walmart and you let 100 letters change your mind? What a screw-up.'”
The story concludes with GM Dayton Moore’s brilliant observation that, “You can’t make excuses for young players. You just can’t. You’ve got to go play. And you’ve got to win!”
USA TODAY sportswriter Bob Nightengale’s snarky retort:
“Hopefully before George Brett starts collecting his Social Security checks. He turns 65 in four years.”
Ah, what might have been…
I was pissed they beat StL last night. I want them to lose every damn game so the manager is fired, the general manager is fired and the owner is forced to sell the team to somebody who gives a shit.
with the boatload of $$ for the Clippers inflating the franchise market
hopefully Glass will want to sell at the top.
great…this writer “who’s not much of a sports fan” writes an article about sports!!!!!!
this guy cant pick a good movie to see so heck…lets let him cut and paste
and article about the royals from usa today.
Heck hearne…why doesn’t glaze write an article about the effect of
global warming on the Aleutian wild goose. Everyone on here writes
something they know nothing about.
In February the “professor” wrote about a big bust in a big family…
now where’s that professor. Maybe the professor was left
on the island and learned everything from Gilligan.
glaze writes about “love” …wow…that’s a great topic for mr.
cassanova.
but to put posey writingsports? come on hearne…lefty does some good
stuff…let him write it.
and if I travel to some far away place I’ll besure and skip posey as an
agent….
this has been discussed and discussedfor decades now.
The royals have never been able to evaluate talent under moore.
They’ve got a manager who can’t manage…a gm who can’t
manage….and an entire department of scouts who either get
strange when on the road or just have no eye for talent.
Time to cut bait….get rid of yost…brewers were smart…cut him
right before playouffs.
what are we waiting for.)
glass has to be smiling. This is the perfect situation for him. Just like
wal mart. He ‘s making moneey and that’s all that counts. But its not
his fault. It’s his fault that he didn’t get rid of or ever hire yost to
manage this team.
glass is sitting pretty. doesn’t spend a dime (ever seen this guy in a suit..
looks like he got it at thrift shop_
so why keep banging on the royals…we all know they suck.
every person on this side of the Mississippi has sounded their
opinion…so why keep bashing them?
you think glass or moore or yost read your blog.
they could care less…
THEY’RE IN THE MONEY!!!!!!!
and with clippers going for 2 billi on…glass just made another 300 million
dollars on the royals valuation charts…
lucky guy….
no money posey stories about sports. please??????????
Thank God we all have Harley to guide us and keep us on the straight and narrow.
Thanks for the hot comments, Harley.
But one doesn’t have to be a fan to report on the nations # 1 newspaper dumping on the Royals—in their sports cover story no less.
It’s quite the Glass-breaker……
Glass takes hot, steamy dump on Royal’s fans collective chests.
Proceeds to ask them if they like being tortured for daring to be Royals fans and if he ate enough corn last night.
again dude…not glass’s fault. He’s spent money. But needs to unload
moore and yost asap. Too much talent being wasted at this point…
and the fans aren’t going to wait like we did for Gordon for each of
them to switch positions.
we’re stuck with this team. they will play until the boss gets tired
of the team not making the playoffs.
But as I said earlier he made about 300 million bucks as the value
of pro sports teams went thru the roof with the clippers selling
for 2 billion!
he’s not selling…no one would buy it now and theres no body
in kc that would probably pay what he wants.
without major tv money the royals are going to chug along.
but glass has spent money…he had a big enough payroll to win
gams with the right stewardship.
Its just that they’re not the right management team.
But someone pointed out they right now are not that bad
as compared to where they were this time in 1980’s when they
won world series.
lets just hope it turns around.
last night was great!!!!!!
No dunderhead, he is a terrible owner and it shows. PERIOD.
That is all there is to say.
NBADL team for Sprint center please
always fun beating the Cards, tho.
If the Royals put as much effort into beating their divisional opponents like they do the Cardinals, they might be worth a squirt of piss. As it is…
While one can make a case that David Glass is doing better as an owner.. The results from a win loss perspective show he’s been the worst owner in sports. He basically took over in 1994 and ran the minors into the ground and ran the team as cheap as he could then bought them and has only produced a few winning seasons in over 20 years and no playoff appearances when its easier to make the playoffs now.. Can’t wait til he sells or even kicks the bucket
Wasn’t the decision not to take the move to the Nat’l league (which I agree was one of the worst decisions ever made in sports) made by Mike Herman, while he was the “steward” in charge of the Royals after Kaufman’s death?