Chicago White Sox General Manager Kenny Williams is reportedly grumpy, utterly focused, unhappy, and always paranoid. Games, with their seesaw suspense, are just too much for this guy, who prefers to turn away from them. In a phrase, hes my kind of guy. This isnt some Moneyball statistics nerd, but someone who eats, sleeps, and dreams baseball. All of his nightmares probably happen between the lines. Who better to entrust a major league baseball franchise? Maybe Ive spent too long in LA, or maybe just the right amount of time, but Im really tired of these perennial adolescents who are put in charge of ball clubs. Maybe they excelled in some Harvard MBA classes, or they married the bosss daughter, or they simply got lucky, but these also-rans, these punks who could be poster boys for Jenny Craig, simply dont impress me. Baseball throws off some wonderful statistics, dont get me wrong. As a kid I could recite all of the batting averages of the White Sox, and most of the ERAs of the pitchers. But ink, printouts, pie charts, and graphs dont win ballgames. Sleepless nights, do. Guzzling quarts of Maalox, chewing innumerable Tums and Rolaids tablets, treats like these win games and championships. Like a good parent who knows how to dispense the guilt to his kids, Kenny Williams is loudly telling everybody how hes suffering in silence. While the guys on the field are enjoying fame and the perks of youth, the GM is growing old and infirm, and hes doing it for you; thank you very much! Somebody has to be a grown-up around here, and Kenny Williams is stepping up. And when his kids excel, hell say they did it all by themselves. Sure. |
