John Kerry Ain't Got Nothin' on Richard Justice - Why Sports Writers Matter

As I sat bleary eyed at my kitchen table, having hit the snooze button three times this morning, I began my typical morning trudge through the Chronicle’s Sports section. Usually, in such a state, I just mutter obscenity laden curses to Richard Justice and Steve Campbell. This isn’t because I’m angry at the world entirely at 6:30 AM, in the end, it’s because I know they have journalistic responsibility to educate the fans of Houston’s sport franchises and when it comes to the Astros, they’re pretty awful at their jobs. Justice and Campbell both have spent the last month-ish trying to explain why the Astros don’t need a fire sale in order to be a better team. That they’re just a FA pitcher next season away from the play-offs. That we can’t underestimate this team because one time, in 2005, they did something spectacular. Never mind that only a handful of those men are left in the Astros dugout, this team might just still have something up its sleeve. All we need to do, Justice and Campbell have urged, is just trust in Drayton.

Then, Ed Wade makes a move that signals to the entire baseball world that he and Drayton McLane are prepared to run this ship into the ground before they even think about trying that rebuilding thing and suddenly Richard Justice, this morning, thinks this organization is doomed. That’s quite the turn around don’t you think? Richard Justice went from a don’t give up on this team, it’s a free agent pitcher away from glory, company line guy to this guy overnight:

"Maybe McLane lacks patience. Maybe he still thinks there’s a quick fix out there.

That might be why he’s willing to spend $100 million on Carlos Lee and veto $1.2 million in spending on three draft picks.

If he’s really smart, he’ll realize he could save money by splurging on draft picks and cutting corners on Wolf, Shawn Chacon, etc.

When he finally understands this, when he studies how the Twins and Marlins and A’s have succeeded on dramatically smaller budgets, he’ll understand that less might actually be more."

Where did that come from Richard? Either you finally grew a pair or you truly are just the most easily swayed flip-flopper around. I hope it’s the former, because that means the pair will stick around and perhaps do something to influence the taste and preferences of Astros fans. If we had legion of beat writers condemning the fool-hearted arrogance of our owner and the ineptitude he inspires in our management, then perhaps fans would be not just be accepting, but welcoming of a rebuild. They might want to tune into Hooks and Express games that show up on FSN about once a week. If Richard Justice had parted with the company line a month ago and printed those statements, Astros fans as a collective body, might have been screaming for anything not buckled down to be moved or at least the pieces that could fetch something of worth.

Instead of rebuilding the farm system, like the smart organizations (Justice’s own words), a month ago this was Richard’s proposal for how to fix this team:

“This course has its price. Signing premier free agents [pitchers] will cost the Astros the draft choices they need.

But there's no perfect solution for a franchise that's broken in so many areas.

It's just one way out. Maybe the best way” (emphasis added).

I’ve read a few articles recently about the biggest villains in baseball, the owners, and that’s probably well and true in most cases. It's hard for anyone to stand up against monopolists with government protection. However, I have a bone to pick with our beat writers. It’s their responsibility to inform the fans of what’s going on in an organization, to help drive the taste and preferences of the general public. If you believe any part of how a market economy works, then you probably understand that taste and preferences are the most important part of demand and to that end, the beat writers may just be the most important aspect of shaping our demand for sports franchises. With this great responsibility, they have failed to do anything other then repackage hokey and tired company lines about this and that in order to get everyone to believe that this franchise isn’t busted. Instead of inciting a riot, they’ve tried to continue to pull the wool over our eyes. Now that the cat is out of the bag, they’re changing their tune -- it’s too little, too late.

There is a lot of blame to go around in baseball when things aren’t going right. I think Drayton and his front office deserve and hearty portion of it. Yet, as demonized as we can make those men and Union Station, we shouldn’t forget that there were a select group of men who had the freedom to say anything they wanted and have it read by millions of readers each day who stood by the dopes at Texas and Crawford instead of living up to their responsibility.

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