Friday, June 16, 2006

Do They Get To Make Decisions After They've Started Drinking Also?

Very interesting story I spotted on ESPN. Apparently an independent minor league baseball team, the Schaumburg Flyers, is going to allow their fans to manage manage many of the team's decisions for the second half of the season.

You might expect this from some Bad News Bears / Major League type team, but this team is currently in first place with a 17-8 record, and lost in the championships a couple years ago.

Fans will initially get to make decisions on lineups, fielding positions, and the pitching roster ... basically what a manager does before the game. Which leads to the most amusing section in the piece, as the team owner Rich Ehrenreich discusses one of the hurdles in the move.

The toughest part of the deal was selling it to his manager Andy McCauley.

"I think he was initially shocked at the idea," Ehrenreich said. "But then I asked him how he felt about being famous."

Ahhh yes, another in the line of famous minor league managers who were replaced by marketing gimmicks. Andy McCauley anyone? Anyone???

Famous For What? Getting Replaced By The Fans? [ESPN]

5 comments:

  1. Reminds me of the movie "Eddie" with whoppie Golberg

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  2. Yeah, it's always about publicity. Do you remember when Michael Jordan joined the minor leagues and his teammates were upset that he was getting paid 3x as much as them (which isn't saying much) despite the fact that he couldn't hit a curve ball with an ironing board. None of that matters. It's Micheal freakin' Jordan and that sells more seats than a guy who can hit well in the minors.

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  3. There's the whole wisdom of crowds thing that I believe in. Let's see what happens!

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  4. you said 'manage' twice in the first sentence. Nice one.

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  5. Now that's a hint and a half for your ass that you need to start looking for another gig.

    ReplyDelete

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