BY DAN
KENNEDY
Notes and observations on
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
click
here.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
The business of baseball is
business. The Globe's Steve Bailey or the Herald's
Cosmo Macero should have been put on the case. Because the day-after
reaction to Grady Little's firing is supremely unsatisfying. The
Herald's Steve
Buckley (sub. req.) and, no
kidding, Gerry
Callahan (ditto) have the
smartest takes this morning. But what this story really needs is
someone who understands business.
Looking at this from afar, it
appears that what's really happened is that the Red Sox' newish
owners intend to run the franchise as a business, not as some old
boys' club dedicated to their own post-adolescent amusement. In the
business world, executives have to manage both down (i.e.,
handling employees, in this case players) and up (working with the
senior executives in carrying out the business plan).
Little did a good job of managing
down, but he evidently was lousy at managing up. He openly disdained
the ownership's numbers-based approach to the game -- an approach
that has become increasingly popular and successful at other
franchises in recent years. The Globe's Gordon Edes has a
mind-blowing anecdote
this morning:
The Sox no longer want to
discover, to their dismay, that the manager, according to a team
source, failed to hold a hitters' meeting before the Oakland
playoff series, wasting countless hours of traditional scouting
work and sophisticated video and statistical analysis that was
done ostensibly to give the Sox an edge.
This is just derelict. No CEO
should put up with this from one of his front-line
managers.
Stories like this put Little's
idiotic decision to send Pedro Martínez out for the eighth
inning -- and to leave him out there while he got his brains beaten
in -- into perspective. But Little's self-immolation robbed the team
owners of a certain degree of maneuverability, too.
Because despite his flaws, Little
might have been better than anyone else the Red Sox could get for
next year. In a perfect world, the Sox would have strung Little along
for a few weeks to see who became available. If they couldn't get a manager who would be obviously better, they might have signed Little for one
more year.
Adrian Wojnarowski,
writing
for ESPN.com, is
irrationally pro-Little, but he is correct when he observes that the
Red Sox let him go without having a backup plan in place.
That's Little's fault. He could
never have managed here again after what happened in Game
Seven.
Islam and terrorism in
Boston? The Herald's investigative team breaks through the
Bennifer haze this morning to weigh in with a major piece
on a Boston-based Islamic organization.
According to the report, the
Islamic Society of Boston, which plans to build a mega-mosque in
Roxbury, has ties to two men who are virulently anti-American and
anti-Israel, Abdurahman Muhammad Alamoudi and Yusuf Abdullah
al-Qaradawi.
Both men have praised terrorist
organizations such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Alamoudi has been
indicted on allegations that he illegally accepted money from Libya.
Al-Qaradawi has been banned from the US for his pro-terrorist
views.
The problem is that it is unclear
whether Alamoudi and al-Qaradawi really do have close ties to the
Islamic Society. The society itself denies it, and supporters say
that it preaches a moderate, tolerant brand of Islam.
There's no doubt that the
Herald's findings are of some significance. But how
significant? It's hard to say.
Part two, coming tomorrow, promises
some answers: "A current trustee of the Islamic Society of Boston has
been named in a federal Islamic terrorism financing
investigation."
posted at 9:04 AM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
