Cairo Owner Bond Upset Once Again (What Else Is New)
Cairo Chronicles, Issue 4, 2042 Season
I could hear the high pitched, nasally outrage coming from down the hall. Welp, I could tell I wouldn’t get much done for the next hour or so.
Cairo owner Ryan Bond started in. “Are you freakin’ serious? You couldn’t sign our top two draft picks!?”
I tried to offset his confrontational demeanor with some passive aggressiveness. “Nice to see you too, Ryan. Hope your day is going well?”
But he continued, “Come on man, we’re just throwing away draft picks now? We couldn’t sign our first two picks? Joy-shan Weng and Marcello McLaren should be pitching for us right now!”
I tried to reason, more than likely futilely, while I texted my assistant GM Jim Pickett to get down to my office to play peacemaker. “Rookie mistake and an oversight on our front office’s part. On the plus side, we’re loaded with pitching as it is and we get those draft picks back next year.”
“There’s no plus side here!”
I could see this wasn’t going anywhere, so I figured I’d have some fun. “Seems like there is...which I just told you about.”
Pickett finally came in the door. He knew babysitting the owner was a pressing matter. “Hi Ryan, what’s going on?”
“This guy can’t close. Baseball, like coffee, is for closers only. I want a guy who can close and sign players! Close! Or this guy can shine my shoes.”
I figured I’d try to save everyone some time, especially myself, and get down to brass tacks. “Or run your entire baseball operation. Either way I guess, right? Because you aren’t firing me. I’ll start pulling rank if I have to. Even if you could replace me, which you can’t, who could you possibly get? I mean, you were scraping the bottom of the barrel with me. The only cheaper person you could get is the guy who is heading the Athens Fighting Centaurs. That guy @Clayman. So settle down.
Peacemaker Jim, the trusty assistant GM tried to come to the rescue as usual. “Hey come on, relax...we don’t want Ryan to keep dropping Glengarry Glen Ross lines on us.”
Passive aggressiveness wasn’t getting me anywhere. Neither was arguing. Maybe truth telling might help a bit. “He should probably drop this act entirely.”
“I’m right here! You can talk to me! I just can’t believe you drafted these two crappy kids who don’t want to come to beautiful Cairo!”
“You and me both, Ryan. I’m not sure if you want to keep going in circles here, but I’ve already explained that it was a rookie mistake. I should have analyzed our folder for the players further. We made a mistake in not talking to the players’ agents or the players themselves and gauged their interest in signing as young kids. Turns out they want to go on to college and it wouldn’t have mattered if we offered them a billion dollars each. Well, maybe it would have. But you’re a bit of a tightwad aren’t ya.” I cracked a smile to try to pass off that this was a bit of a joke, even there was some truth behind it.
“Ok, fine - do better next time! I don’t want to have to keep coming to this office with gripes!” With that, Bond huffed and puffed out of the office.
“We both know he’ll come down to the office with gripes, probably tomorrow, even if we were undefeated”, Jim sighed.
