Guest Column: Joe McGrath on Stupidity
Editor’s Note: Mr. McGrath has long and storied history in the management of professional sports franchises, most notably as the general manager of the Charlestown Chiefs of the now-defunct Federal League. Oh, and this is probably a good time to mention that Mr. McGrath’s views are his own, and do not necessarily reflect those of Dubsism, our staff, or anybody else whose house you might want to burn to the ground.
What a lot of you don’t know about me is that I love to read in my spare time. I picked up this habit on those long bus trips to places like Peterborough back in my Federal League days. The other night I found this book of quotes, and it had a section on stupidity. As I read through some of these quotes, it occurred to me just how rampant stupidity is in our world. Albert Einstien once said only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity. I don’t that guy ever said anything ever more important. The funny part is that so many of these quotes, eve if they are hundreds of years old still apply to some of the shitheads we have out there today.
1) Bud Selig, Commissioner, Major League Baseball
“The only thing that ever consoles man for the stupid things he does is the praise he always gives himself for doing them.” – Oscar Wilde
For life of me, I can’t figure out what this shit-for-brains was thinking. He has one guy who wanted to buy the Dodgers and had the money, cash goddamn money, and all of it that day. Instead, Commissioner Big Brain sells to a guy that has less than 2% of the cash up-front, and has the rest of the money in a financing plan shakier Oprah’s flabby ass.
2) Brian Sabean, General Manager, San Francisco Giants
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
You baseball guys are such pussies sometimes. In hockey, if our star goalie gets plowed over, we just send a few of the big boys out to exact some “street justice.” But when Buster Posey got creamed on a play where deserved to get creamed, you bitched about it so long and loud you probably went through two full menstrual cycles while you did it. Teach your boys to play hard, but play smart, and most of all, keep your little fairy-yap shut. The game is about them, not your soft, fluffy ass.
3) David Kahn, General Manager, Minnesota Timberwolves
“Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.” – Sloan Wilson
This is right in my wheelhouse, as I was a general manger you far more years than I care to remember. There’s tow parts to the bottom line to success in that job.
- Never question the integrity of the league commissioner, even if you know the cocksucker is so crooked his driver’s license picture looks like a question mark.
- Never fire a coach who is happy to have a shitty job.
I rarely see a guy who steps in it like this moulyak. He blew through both of these in less than a month. First, he essentially calls NBA Commissioner David Stern a crook by insinuating the league’s draft lottery is fixed. Of course Stern’s a crook, he’s a Commissioner. To be a Commissioner, you have to be a politician, and to be a politician, you have have to be slimier that a snot-covered pile of worm-filled horse shit. You just can’t say it.
Then he jerks around Kurt Rambis on the Wolves’ head coaching job. Look, I get Rambis couldn’t coach his way out of a paper bag if you gave him a map and a blowtorch, but nobody in their right mind wants that job. If you have a guy whose is happy to fail in a job where you expect failure, be happy with that.
4) Jim Hendry, General Manager, Chicago Cubs
“The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat.” – Oscar Wilde
Let’s be honest, anybody in a leadership role with the Cubs clearly understands this. Without the thrill of victory, there is no point of reference for the agony of defeat. That means if you are Jim Hendry, there’s just of lot of confused staring into the opposing dugout and wondering, “Why do those guys all seem so happy?”
5) Jim Riggleman, ex-Manager, Washington Nationals
“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.” – Oscar Wilde
I understand how the blue-collar set thinks Riggleman standing up for his pride is a noble and honorable act. That’s exactly why they are on the lower rung of the social ladder and will never climb it. Riggleman wasn’t some ball-scratcher making eleven bucks an hour on some assembly line; he had signed a binding contract to do a job, for which he was to be paid in one year what the people worshipping his titanic act of stupidity make in a decade. Instead, Riggleman doesn’t have the raisins to live with his pride being wounded a bit and commits career suicide over it.
6) E. Gordon Gee, President, Ohio State Penitentiary University
“Between a fellow who is stupid and honest and one who is smart and crooked, I will take the first. I won’t get much out of him, but with that other guy I can’t keep what I’ve got.” – General Lewis B. Hershey
Time for some brutal honesty for Brutus F. Buckeye. The “resignation” of Jim Tressel was not an attempt of the university to ward off NCAA sanctions. It was attempt by Gee to yank his ass out of the fire. Gee committed the cardinal sin of letting a subordinate get away with murder because he was producing results. Every once in a while, you have to make sure your people aren’t doing things for which you ultimately will be held accountable.
When you find out something on which you need to act, there are plenty of ways to deal with such a problem that still insulate yourself. Put a sealed letter of reprimand in his file that contains a clause to the effect of “you are on double-secret probation for period of time X, at the end of which this letter will be removed from your file.”
The trick is you keep that letter in your file along with a log of everytime the farted in the wrong key; that way you have a record that you acted on known bad behavior, and you have plenty of stuff to introduce into the record for any potential legal proceedings.
Either way, you will have cards to play instead of losing your job for “looking the other way.” Denial always means death when the word gets out.
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I believe that Kahn has a homoerotic fixation on Ricky Rubio why else would he want the player there ? Not because the T’wolves have more PG’s </a? than they know what do with ! How'd you think Sebastian Telfair feels ? No Brokeback Mountain moment for him one guesses then !
Riggleman was on a year to year contract and the Cubs’ front office simply didn’t want to give the guy a contract extension in spite of his repeated requests for a meeting to discuss the matter , instead they wanted to deal with the issue at the end of the season . The players have guaranteed contracts that are multi year some are signed to ridiculous deals and they simply aren’t producing shi# at all !
E Gordon Gee was never meant to be the smartest guy in a room …… he was meant to be the only guy in the room of an asylum that’s all .
The less said about Selig the better because he’s as irritant as a hemorrhoid problem !
Brian Sabean ? Ooh wee ….. that World Series’ win really has raised his profile hasn’t it ? Now what ? If the Giants’ players were actually man enough then they’d have gone after the Marlins’ Scott Cousins but I guess that they weren’t !
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What, no appearances from Stern or Goodell?
Looking forward to Part Deux.
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