The Philadelphia Daily News’ Bill Conlin talks about something everyone can relate to : receiving far too much email and at what point do you forward several hundred angry messages to the owners of the Phillies.
The Ed Wade Era ended with the onetime Phillies public-relations department intern lashing out at critics during a bitter rant where he all but said he had been lynched by a small segment of a hostile media.
Asked about the criticism, Wade responded: “I think the personal attacks, obviously … anybody who is in my position and received some of the personal attacks from people who never came to the ballpark, never asked a question, never did an interview, but yet seemed to know the pulse of the ballclub and have a feel for what I do in my job, people whose frame of reference goes back into the early ’80s and before, and think they know what a 21st century general manager’s responsibilities are, obviously that created an environment where attacks became personal, and I did not appreciate it.”
I looked around the media conference room in the bowels of the Money Pit. The only one I could find there who went back to the “early ’80s and before” besides me was Phillies PR vice president Larry Shenk. I don’t think Wade meant The Baron.
The pulse of the fans came to me unsolicited. After the Phillies folded for the second straight season and Wade fired manager Larry Bowa, I started getting a new kind of e-mail. These were not mindless rants filled with bad grammar and obscenities. These were complaints from a broad spectrum of literate fans upset by the general direction of the ballclub under Wade. Many said they would not renew their season tickets in the wake of Bowa’s firing. I began forwarding this long laundry list of grievances to Shenk and Montgomery.
Others, involving personnel matters, I sent to Wade. As the offseason lengthened into winter, the e-mail volume increased.
I found myself responding to upwards of 200 a week. I could no longer keep up with the avalanche after the interviewing process to hire a new manager ended in the Charlie Manuel dog-and-pony show. Fans were outraged that ready, willing and able candidate Jim Leyland was passed over for the likable but hardly high-profile batting coach who came to the Phils as an obvious pot-sweetener when Indians protege Jim Thome was signed.
The Phillies never indicated they took this steady drumbeat of fan outrage seriously, choosing to regard it as a small but loud percentage of WIP callers and Internet forum yahoos. But the e-mails never let up. They continued through the season, peaking around the July 31 trade deadline. I did not start the FireEdWade.com Web site, by the way. Nor have I ever visited it. Since Oct. 1, I have answered more than 100 Phillies-related e-mails and was in the process of replying to a fan dropping out as a season ticketholder after 19 years when word of the 4 p.m. news conference clicked into my mailbox.
I feel pretty sorry for Charlie Manuel as now that Wade is gone, when the Phillies go through another 86-88 win season next year (likely as there doesnt appear to be a top-tier starter available) he is going to be the primary target for wrath. The same reactive “He has a ring” crowd are clamoring for Brian Cashman, those who put a bit more thought into the matter seem to be favoring ex-Astro GM Gerry Hunsicker or hiring somebody from the Braves FO, but everybody is in agreement that Ed Wades time was up (his worst mistake was hiring Larry Bowa in a desperate move to put fannies into seats in 2001 and I think Wade should have been shown the door along with Bowa) and that his replacement has to come from outside the Phillies old boy network.
Soon we’ll hear Steve Phillips report on Baseball Tonight that he has heard that Steve Phillips is in fact interested in the job…
All sportswriters seem to be angry and bitter – I guess being forced to cover 22 year old morons who make 5MM a year will do that to ya
I have it good authority that some of this “anger” is in fact, a literary conceit. Bill Conlin might be one of the happiest men on earth.
I doubt it, but he could be.
Harris- Conlin is bitter because unlike the days When Men Were Men, the Phillies brass will not pound down drinks with him at the bar. As far the likes of Conlin (a longtime shit-stirrer who was in the forefront of stoking Richie Allen harrassment during the 60’s) or WIP radio, I’ll use a Philly-specific analogy by saying that my disliking of Frank Rizzo didnt mean that I ever found MOVE endearing. The same goes with the Phils brass and the butt end of Philly sports media.
While “some” may be (he may’ve seen that he struck a chord and decided to use it), I highly doubt anyone who spends all of their time writing snarky crap is happy (certainly about what they do).
By the way, I don’t think you should use the term “sportswriter” and the word “literary” in the same sentence.
This might be the first and last time the word “snarky” is used to describe Bill Conlin.
Of course, those that spend all of their time cutting and pasting snarky crap are a happy go lucky lot.
The truth path to happiness and perspective can only be found in frequently reading this blog, as well as commenting every time a thought pops into your head.