Lefty

http://www.azcentral.com/sports/diam...leydbacks.html

Byrnes signed an eight-year extension in 2008. He may have too much job security. He likes to dabble in the daily lineup card. And he appointed his wing man as manager, brazenly signing Hinch through 2012. The move was fraught with risk, and guaranteed to alienate fans and players alike.

The reality was even worse. The Diamondbacks became the joke of Major League Baseball, and Byrnes' credibility was severely damaged.

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AZZenny

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"The power of the State looks real different when you're on the other side of the bayonet." Chris Hayes

O

Do you think?

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SunsTzu

Then he goes on to say:
So it's the fanbase that is the problem not the team! Maybe they would attract a more educated fanbase if they didn't sign a career long scrub like Eric Byrnes to a ridiculous contract and then proceed to shove him down everyones throats as the face of the franchise.

DWKB

It was the uneducated fan base that clamored so hard for EB to be signed. It was the fear of losing that base that Jeff Moorad made the horribly poor unilateral decision to offer up that contract even after Josh Byrnes publicly stated EB would not be coming back next year.

The uneducated Arizona fan base is definitely a major problem for this franchise.

However, Dan Bickley isn't the Moses for this problem. His understanding of this game is on par with a 6 year old from 1956. On top of being a Cubs fan his opinion on baseball fits somewhere between Lindsey Lohan and Kanye West on how much weight I give it.

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Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four: so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance


"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

- Thomas Jefferson

SunsTzu

I'm not buying the fanbase it to blame for EB signing. If you want to attract fans in the valley you have to win. If management decided to forego future success do to a niche following Eric Byrnes had then it's on them.

DWKB

Well it would be a lie to claim the fan base had no impact on the EB signing and insincere to claim it was a niche. You're correct that wining is the ultimate solution to bringing in fans, but this place isn't smart enough to know what it takes to win or not. They thought, at a high percentage, that signing EB would bring winning to the club and letting him go was being cheap and not caring about winning. They were wrong, of course.

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Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four: so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance


"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."

- Thomas Jefferson

Avondale Red Rage

Yea, we can't even spell it.. j/k.

I would take playing good 'ole fashioned country hard ball with some occasional passion and hustle and tolerate a loss or two. It's the dis-jointed ball dropping, unfocused play and daily team meetings that drives me wacky.

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"I've played 21-22 years. I'm 45 years old. I've come upon 300 wins. And I'm thinking, I've only got 211 more to catch Cy Young." — Randy Johnson