"Duke" Neukom

The new head honcho has a book. (The following is lifted from Ray Ratto's piece in the Comical:)

"We want to develop a Giants Way of playing baseball," the team's new managing general partner announced Tuesday. "My idea is that we adhere to it at the minor-league level and all the way up. It's how you play the game, conditioning, fundamentals, a rigorous spring training regimen, everything. We want the best talent, the best teachers, the best leaders, the best trainers, and we want to have better communication on what we want and how we want it done."

There's a well-known fellow who passed on a some years back by the name of W. Edwards Deming. He was a mangement/leadership guru, but a nuts-and-bolts guy, not some clown spouting woo-woo hippie bullshit. His first rule was, in short: create constancy of purpose.

Now, I've been squawking for years about this sort of thing. Ever since I learned about Branch Rickey and Walter Alston and their famous tomes on how to play baseball, and how their organization (during the O'Malley era) actually embraced a uniform approach to the game, I was astounded that they were the exception, not the rule. Of course, I learned this stuff way back when the LAtriners routinely thumped the Giants and routinely found themselves fighting for a post-season spot. It was obvious then that their organization was superior. Some day, I thought, the Giants will figure it out.

I therefore greet this news from El Jefe with optimism--guarded of course, because Sabean and Bochy will still be around. But optimism nonetheless, something I've had in short supply recently. After all, our starting shortstop next year has a .337 lifetime slugging percentage.

I'm about to head off for work right now, so I can't actually "raise a glass," but I call on all readers and hecklers to raise a glass to Bill "Duke" Neukom for making a fine first impression.