A number of folks are downright gushing about the new hire over at The Yard that will be announced today. I’m talking about Reid Ryan of baseball royalty – the son of Hall of Fame great and former ‘Stro Nolan Rayn. Here is what MLB.com’s Richard Justice gushes:
Reid Ryan’s hiring as team president is a stroke of genius by Astros owner Jim Crane. It makes sense on so many levels that it’s difficult to know where to start.
Woah now! I don’t know about that! I would only go as far as to say it is the best move out of The Yard this week.
Here is the entire Justice gush.
Former ‘Stro CEO George Postolos who unceremoniously resigned this past Monday is the ultimate fall guy and he is being made to be a local sports villain and that’s too bad. He is getting blamed for the ugly signage in left field. He is being blamed for not getting the TV deal done. We don’t know if he had any involvement in pulling the plug on the Wives Gala but some folks probably think he had a hand in it. He took the hit for hiking the ticket prices when the good teams visit. You get the picture.
The fact is the owner signed off on all of the above. In fact the owner is the only one that has been quoted on the TV deal mess. He has taken a hard ball stance on the TV deal which is interesting in where is the demand to watch a team with a 11-30 record. The owner was the one who communicated to the Wives Gala folks that the team would handle it.
When you factor in mounting losses on the field, the front office finally started to sense that their fan base was restless and somebody had to go and Postolos was the fall guy, after all, you can’t fire the owner.
In comes Reid Ryan to save the day, errr the franchise. I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt but the owner is going to have to kind of admit that his actions have contributed to the negative perception fans have today. It wasn’t all the fault of Postolos just like Reid Ryan by himself isn’t going to turns things around. The owner has to step up.
The TV deal, left field signage, ticket prices, Wives Gala are issues that need to be addressed. Telling the fans and season ticket holders to kiss our arses isn’t going to cut it. Get your heads out of the sand! Got it!
If they don’t get it, Reid Ryan is the next fall guy in waiting and I don’t care who his daddy is.
The ‘Stros visit PNC Park this weekend. How many World Serious titles do the Pirates own?
Burkablog decided to slap around the House Dems up in the state legislature on the budget deal. I really don’t know what is going on but here is Burkablog’s partial take:
As for the Democrats, I hate to say this, but they have lost so many times that they have forgotten how to win. The latest example is the battle over restoring the education cuts. After a hard day of negotiations, Speaker Straus put an offer on the table: $3.5 billion in additional public education spending. The deal, Straus told the Democrats, will be "dead in the morning, " as reported by Mike Hailey, if they haven’t accepted it and promised to support funding for the water plan. Oblivious to their own infirmities as the minority party, Democrats griped that the Republicans were moving the goal posts. This was truly stupid. As I have written earlier on this topic, Straus has bent over backward to give the D’s what they wanted, jeopardizing his standing with conservative Republicans in the process. This is the textbook case of why the Democrats don’t win: they think they’re entitled, because they represent all that is true and good and right in politics. Until that attitude changes, they’ll never win.
The Pirates own five World Serious titles of course: 1909, 1925, 1960, 1971, and 1979.
Only 40% of us have the opportunity to watch the Reid Ryan announcement live this afternoon on CSNH.
Since our pitchers can’t pitch, I wonder if they can bat as we go interleague this evening minus the DH.
