Joe Posnanski now writes for a national audience at Sports Illustrated. But the former Kansas City Star columnist has not forgotten his roots, as he spends a disproportionate amount of his energy describing the tormented sports lives of Cleveland (his hometown) and Kansas City (his place of residence).
JoePo's latest Dispatch From Miseryville considers the Royals' acquisition of outfielder Jeff Francoeur. Posnanski says the transaction was "comically predictable" on account of the fact that Royals G.M. Dayton Moore knows Francoeur from their shared time in Atlanta. Also, Francoeur can't get on base, an important skill Moore tends to overlook.
Or at least that's what Moore tried to say.
Posnanski wrote a 2,000-word story about Moore for the The Star four months after Moore took the job. Described "as old fashioned as those pillow mitts fielders wore in the 1930s," Moore talked about his fantasy of holding the World Series parade at the Country Club Plaza.
Moore came off like an Eagle Scout. He told Joe:
I would not hire someone unless I believed in his character. I would not draft or sign anyone unless I believed in his character. I learned that lesson a long time ago. We will have a team Kansas City can be proud of, I promise you that.Promise broken.
Desperate to field a competitive team, Moore acquired some of the game's biggest A-holes: Jose Guillen, Sidney Ponson, Kyle Farnsworth and Juan Cruz. He even tried to trade for Milton Bradley, a hothead who feuded with his managers and spent time in jail after fleeing a traffic stop. Character, it seemed, was something Moore talked about at Rotary luncheons. In his office, he acted like Al Davis.
In his Francoeur column, Posnanski refers to Moore's "team Kansas City can be proud of" quote. He says Moore was criticized for "high-falutin' moralism" (I was one of the critics). Then he goes on to say what Moore meant to say back in 2006:
He was public in his goal to build a winning atmosphere around players who stood for many of the same principles he stands for, who were willing to work harder than most, who were good teammates, great leaders, and all that stuff.Of course, Moore didn't say that, even though there were 100 ways to get across the point that the Royals were going to do the sensible thing and make it a point to acquire reliable people. No jerks. No divas. No guys who come in smelling like Crown and leave donut crumbs on the weight bench. Baseball people even have a term for it: "makeup." As in, a player has "good makeup."
Instead, Moore felt compelled to speak in the language of a Christian comic book. And this, in addition to his penchant for signing and trading for knuckleheads and creeps, is why he was criticized. (That, and hiring Bible study all-star Trey Hillman.) With his Team You Can Take Home to Mom speech, Moore was trying to do more than instill confidence in the organization. He was glorifying himself, much in the same way that a guy will use the term "family man" to tell you that he attends church, doesn't fool around and is capable of reproducing.
The fans put off by Moore's remarks weren't dismissing the idea that character matters. The religiosity that tinged his statements is what made us suspicious.
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