Good list, but where is Peter Angelos of the Orioles?
Hicks is famous as the "one dumb owner" Jerry Reinsdorf referred to after he gave A-Rod that 10 year deal, as in "it just takes one dumb owner" to blow up the costs for all baseball with an idiotic contract.
Tom Hicks didn't even make the list. It was the two previous Texas Rangers owners who did.
Between the Rangers and the Astros, Texas really has had a series of winners. No wonder it took so long fot both teams to finally make it to the World Series.
Conspicuous by his absence is Charlie O. Finley of Oakland in the early '70s. He rewarded his players for three World Series wins (or maybe two) by trading most of them away and stinking up the field with cheap talent. By 1974 the team was lucky to draw 1000 fans a game.
One other note. I was at the Kingdome one night when George Argyros showed up in the announcer's booth. The fans turned to him and chanted, "Jump, George, jump!" in unison until he left.
No mention of Jeffrey Loria who destroyed the Montreal Expos and is doing a pretty fair job of ruining the Florida Marlins. As a former Montreal fan I blame him for what happened to my team.
When he bought the team he spent half of the team's budget for players on three "stars." He didn't sign a TV or radio conract for the team in 2000. He fired Felipe Alou, the greatest manager the team ever had. When the team had a deal in place to build a new stadium (Labatt Park) he destroyed the deal by demanding that the agreed upon design - a single deck open park - be changed to a more expensive double decked park. When he sold the team to Major League Baseball and bought the Florida Marlins he took every member of the on and off field staff with him. In the nest to the last year of the Expos existance, under the ownership of MLB, the Expos and Marlins (owned by Loria) were completing for the lowest paid attendance figures. To ensure that his team wasn't beaten in attendance by the Expos he sold tickets to the last game at a fraction of the face value. The guy bought the Expos to destroy them. And this moron isn't even on the list.
As a former Los Angeles resident who spent many happy hours watching games at Dodger Stadium, I can't believe the colossal incompetence and greed that has dominated the team's ownership since the O'Malley family sold it. Soon, all we'll have is the memory of Vin Scully's voice and Kirk Gibson's epic homerun.
7 comments:
Good list, but where is Peter Angelos of the Orioles?
Hicks is famous as the "one dumb owner" Jerry Reinsdorf referred to after he gave A-Rod that 10 year deal, as in "it just takes one dumb owner" to blow up the costs for all baseball with an idiotic contract.
And where is Drayton McLane?
Jeff
Tom Hicks didn't even make the list. It was the two previous Texas Rangers owners who did.
Between the Rangers and the Astros, Texas really has had a series of winners. No wonder it took so long fot both teams to finally make it to the World Series.
Jeff
And no wonder the Astros won't be back during my lifetime.
Conspicuous by his absence is Charlie O. Finley of Oakland in the early '70s. He rewarded his players for three World Series wins (or maybe two) by trading most of them away and stinking up the field with cheap talent. By 1974 the team was lucky to draw 1000 fans a game.
One other note. I was at the Kingdome one night when George Argyros showed up in the announcer's booth. The fans turned to him and chanted, "Jump, George, jump!" in unison until he left.
No mention of Jeffrey Loria who destroyed the Montreal Expos and is doing a pretty fair job of ruining the Florida Marlins. As a former Montreal fan I blame him for what happened to my team.
When he bought the team he spent half of the team's budget for players on three "stars." He didn't sign a TV or radio conract for the team in 2000. He fired Felipe Alou, the greatest manager the team ever had. When the team had a deal in place to build a new stadium (Labatt Park) he destroyed the deal by demanding that the agreed upon design - a single deck open park - be changed to a more expensive double decked park. When he sold the team to Major League Baseball and bought the Florida Marlins he took every member of the on and off field staff with him. In the nest to the last year of the Expos existance, under the ownership of MLB, the Expos and Marlins (owned by Loria) were completing for the lowest paid attendance figures. To ensure that his team wasn't beaten in attendance by the Expos he sold tickets to the last game at a fraction of the face value. The guy bought the Expos to destroy them. And this moron isn't even on the list.
As a former Los Angeles resident who spent many happy hours watching games at Dodger Stadium, I can't believe the colossal incompetence and greed that has dominated the team's ownership since the O'Malley family sold it. Soon, all we'll have is the memory of Vin Scully's voice and Kirk Gibson's epic homerun.
Post a Comment