43.01 The Two W's
Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2020 4:55 pm
UMEBA fans are entirely unaccustomed to a situation like this.
Any time a team in the Unified Middle East Baseball Association hires a new general manager, that team’s fans know exactly what to say: who? UMEBA executives are typically nobodies plucked from obscurity, off-brand names if you know what I mean. This is a stepping stone league, and everybody has to start somewhere — players and GMs are no different in this way.
But now with Adam Dyck set to take the reins in Cairo, fans are asking an entirely different question: why? The “why” is normally pretty self-explanatory — the team needs somebody to take the job, and the GM needs a first crack at management. Here, however, things are altogether more murky indeed. We all know “who” Dyck is, but nothing else about this makes much sense.
A former GM and manager with both the Buffalo/Havana/San Fernando organization and the Edmonton Jackrabbits, Adam Dyck's track record in the Brewster Baseball Association is a poor one. In seven seasons his ball clubs never sniffed the postseason, and he guided only one BBA franchise to a .500 record (in what turned out to be his last year in Havana, ironically enough — too little, too late). Between stints in the Brewster he spent a single year in Europe managing the Belfast Northstars in the EBA, a spiritual ancestor of today’s UMEBA. He had some success there, making it to the league’s championship series in his lone season to earn his brief comeback attempt with Edmonton, but his time in Ireland was rife with controversy. Dyck mounted campaigns against both the EBA and the BBA in the courts and the press, denouncing the Rule VI draft as tantamount to burglary. He lost that battle, of course, but all of Europe remembers and blames Adam Dyck for the event’s role in the demise of the European Baseball Alliance. Commissioner Matt Rectenwald has repeatedly refused to confirm the rumours that Dyck grandstanding led directly to his office’s decision to fold the league.
Adam Dyck may have been a failure as a baseball executive, but he certainly made waves as a broadcaster. Never one to shy away from making his opinion known, Dyck is of course most famous for his role in the creation of what is now the Brewster Broadcasting Network. Baseball fans all either loved or loved to hate his takes on the game, driving massive listenership and establishing the podcast as a key part of the Association’s media strategy.
Is that why Cairo ownership brought Dyck to CCABC — butts in seats? If the hope is that Dyck repeats the same kinds of stunts he pulled in Belfast, it just might work. But at what cost? Do the Chariot Archers really want to become that kind of a club? Surely our dignity is worth more than a few walk-up tickets.
Or is something larger at play? Some people inside the game think the job was a favour from Rectenwald, repaying Dyck for his “services to the game” as a podcaster. While it may be considered admirable for the Commish to overlook past tensions over the EBA fiasco, it doesn’t sit right with this reporter that our baseball team is being treated like an I.O.U. slip.
Only time will tell, which means it could take the rest of the season (or longer!) before we know the answer to the question at hand: why Adam Dyck?
Any time a team in the Unified Middle East Baseball Association hires a new general manager, that team’s fans know exactly what to say: who? UMEBA executives are typically nobodies plucked from obscurity, off-brand names if you know what I mean. This is a stepping stone league, and everybody has to start somewhere — players and GMs are no different in this way.
But now with Adam Dyck set to take the reins in Cairo, fans are asking an entirely different question: why? The “why” is normally pretty self-explanatory — the team needs somebody to take the job, and the GM needs a first crack at management. Here, however, things are altogether more murky indeed. We all know “who” Dyck is, but nothing else about this makes much sense.
A former GM and manager with both the Buffalo/Havana/San Fernando organization and the Edmonton Jackrabbits, Adam Dyck's track record in the Brewster Baseball Association is a poor one. In seven seasons his ball clubs never sniffed the postseason, and he guided only one BBA franchise to a .500 record (in what turned out to be his last year in Havana, ironically enough — too little, too late). Between stints in the Brewster he spent a single year in Europe managing the Belfast Northstars in the EBA, a spiritual ancestor of today’s UMEBA. He had some success there, making it to the league’s championship series in his lone season to earn his brief comeback attempt with Edmonton, but his time in Ireland was rife with controversy. Dyck mounted campaigns against both the EBA and the BBA in the courts and the press, denouncing the Rule VI draft as tantamount to burglary. He lost that battle, of course, but all of Europe remembers and blames Adam Dyck for the event’s role in the demise of the European Baseball Alliance. Commissioner Matt Rectenwald has repeatedly refused to confirm the rumours that Dyck grandstanding led directly to his office’s decision to fold the league.
Adam Dyck may have been a failure as a baseball executive, but he certainly made waves as a broadcaster. Never one to shy away from making his opinion known, Dyck is of course most famous for his role in the creation of what is now the Brewster Broadcasting Network. Baseball fans all either loved or loved to hate his takes on the game, driving massive listenership and establishing the podcast as a key part of the Association’s media strategy.
Is that why Cairo ownership brought Dyck to CCABC — butts in seats? If the hope is that Dyck repeats the same kinds of stunts he pulled in Belfast, it just might work. But at what cost? Do the Chariot Archers really want to become that kind of a club? Surely our dignity is worth more than a few walk-up tickets.
Or is something larger at play? Some people inside the game think the job was a favour from Rectenwald, repaying Dyck for his “services to the game” as a podcaster. While it may be considered admirable for the Commish to overlook past tensions over the EBA fiasco, it doesn’t sit right with this reporter that our baseball team is being treated like an I.O.U. slip.
Only time will tell, which means it could take the rest of the season (or longer!) before we know the answer to the question at hand: why Adam Dyck?