They say to give credit where credit is due. Well my colleague’s commentary last issue spring boarded this article. And before I get bashed for claiming to be a Cardinals fan a few weeks ago, I was a Royals fan a long time before I found the Cards.
Let me start by saying I agree with everything said in the previous Royals commentary. The franchise has been in some serious trouble for a while now, but in the seven seasons since David Glass took over, there have been six losing seasons, four of which were 100 losses or more.
So my question is this; why is David Glass still the owner of the Royals franchise when he has done nothing good for it since he took over?
I suppose a better question to ask first is how did David Glass become the owner of the Royals in the first place? After all, when he was bidding for the team he was outbid by Miles Prentice. And this was no small margin, Prentice and his group of 40 some investors outbid Glass by $24 million. I guess since Glass was the Chairman of the Board with the Royals after Ewing Kauffman’s death, he had a lot of pull when it came to deciding who would own the team.
My next question involves the money situation. The last commentary on the subject said the Royals had the fourth lowest payroll in the Major Leagues. How is it that a man that could afford to spend $96 million on a baseball team cannot to invest more money into his players? He’s not using the money to renovate Kauffman Stadium; he had to ask taxpayers for that money. Maybe he’ll invest in something else important, like a new yacht.
Okay, maybe that’s a bit unfair. Not every person to come out of Wal-Mart’s upper corporate structure is a money grubber are they? Glass does have a building named after him at Missouri State in Springfield, so he must have donated to the school from which he came. Sounds like a good guy right?
Take this into account, in an interview that was later terminated by Wal-Mart, Glass was asked about children in Asia working in sweatshop- like conditions. His response: “You might perhaps, define children differently.” Not only did he show his supreme intellect as CEO of Wal-Mart, but went on to say that because of Asian’s generally short statures, you cannot tell how old they are.
Maybe it’s not all his fault. Maybe he is just unable to keep up with the team; after all, managing a baseball team is a major commitment, not like keeping track of business in thousands of stores around the country. That must be why he hired his three children to work on the Board of Directors, to help him make important decisions about the team, like raising ticket prices after the tax increase.
To top it all off, during the baseball strike in 1994-95, Kauffman was one of the strongest advocates for bringing in replacement players to keep the season going as well as being strongly against a settlement with the players union.
Why is this man still the owner of the Royals? What good has he done? He’s lined his pockets and managed to drive a team into the ground. People blame the managers for not being able to put the team together and pull off a winning season, but without the right resources, what options do they have?
Perhaps the biggest question of all is can this team come back from the brink and prove themselves as contenders again? With a piecemeal roster the chances are very unlikely. But if an investor or investors came forward and actually put some work and money into the team, I think this team is more than salvageable. Kansas City is known more for its dedication to the Chiefs, but if a city can get behind that team even when they are going through rough times, why can’t they help get behind this team too? I just hope that Buddy Bell doesn’t have to cry to get KC behind him.