Whitlock follows through

Am I imagining things, or is there some kind of obsession with the Royals on this board, a team that hasn't been remotely relevant in more than two decades and which shows no signs of becoming relevant in any of our lifetimes?

 

It's that damn Midwest Coast bias, I tell you!

 

The Royals are a microcosm of sports in the 00s. They can't compete with the big boys in the current economic strata that is major league baseball and the folks they have hired to make personnel decisions are the exact opposite of the boy geniuses who run the A's and Red Sox. The average Joes that control the purse strings have kept the franchise mired in mediocrity,

Meanwhile, the fans suffer. Two decades now between playoff appearances. One can only live on memories of George Brett and Bret Saberhagen and Willie Wilson, et. al. for so long and then it's what have you done lately. In KC's case, the answer is absolutely nothing.

What's sad is how strong of a baseball community KC once was. They drew from 4-5 states and personified all that was right with the sport. But year after losing year robbed the faithful of all hope. And unliike other perennial losers (Cubs) the lure of Kauffman Stadium isn't enough to draw the masses like lemmings every year.

If KC ever gets good again -- and that's one giant sized if -- maybe the luster will return to this formerly proud franchise.

 

Uh, Jason, you there?

 

Wright Thompson piece on David Glass being a great man: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/14895910.htm

Whitlock on Glass being kind: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/14896092.htm

Release the hounds?

 

simon, how 'bout a little context... i've been writing a series of columns on glass. you can't just talk about day 4 without mentioning the other 3.

 

Before I share a couple of the stories, I want to clear up a couple of things. When I went out to the K on Saturday, I had no idea that my colleague Wright Thompson was filing a long profile on David Glass for today’s paper.



Nothing like being totally disconnected from what's going at at the paper where you supposedly work. Too busy being a media star, huh, JW.

 

Recap of Jason's hardcore bashing of Glass: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/

1st column he talks about the new GM and bashes Glass a little bit. 2nd Column he talks how they Royals suck and havent been playing better and that Bell is a sitting duck. 3rd column he talks about the Royals need a new Tony Pena, someone fucking nuts like Ozzie. 4th column he joins Wright's Glass is a great guy who is going blind but he still says he sucks and is the worst owner ever.

More coverage of Royals than they ever deserve.

I think I get the point that David Glass sucks as an owner...but how is this changing anything? How are your columns going to make the Royals better? How many times are writers going to write "Glass hates losing" without questioning it seriously? He's full of shit.

 

I've ripped Whitlock's character mercilessly, but this little snafu where he filed a column the same day Thompson filed his profile provides an interesting contrast in their styles.

And Whitlock wins. In a day's worth of work. The strengths and weaknesses of Glass are actually more apparent in Sweeney's and Silverio's quotes than they are in Thompson's piece, where, again, he enjoys writing long stretches about the owner watching the game in the seats, blah, blah, blah, without ever getting to the nuts and bolts of what Glass does as an owner.

Thompson's stories routinely suffer from a lack of sheer reporting. They talk around a subject, but not to the subject, or even really about the subject. If you wanted to expose David Glass, you dive into the revenues, the books, the works and you really do it. How long did have on the story? You'd have to think a couple months.

If Thompson's piece had been a knockout, you probably wouldn't have seen Whitlock's column. Truth is, the column illuminates the profile with better reporting.

 

Maybe the Star needs to get its fucking head out of its ass, stop blathering about the redesign, and start planning a little bit better. Then "snafus" like this might not happen.

 

DyePack,

I think the Star, in its own way, will benefit from Thompson's depature. It'll prevent things like this.

 

It's amazing how much shit Whitlock catches on this board. Moreso than any other columnist I reckon. What an irony, considering he's one of the few columnists to deal directly with the folks on this board.

Do I like everything Whitlock writes? No. That can be said about any columnist, though. Whitlock has been disseminated enough on this board for him to be a subject of a college class (Alma as the professor, perhaps ... I do enjoy your posts, Alma).

I can't hold the budgeting snafu against Whitlock. He has editors who knew he was going to be out at the ballpark all week. Blame lies with them. Wait a minute ... I guess they were all in Las Vegas.

Can we move on, now? All this Royals talk is giving me a tummy ache.

If you really want a good discussion, how about Kansas City allowing Posnanski to file a World Cup soccer column from Jerusalem ... on a country that's not even in the Cup. I assume he's there on vacation instead of ... heaven forbid ... on assignment.