“BONJOUR, MONTREAL!”, screamed Coach Exécutif Stan H. Stansman into a microphone on a hastily constructed podium, beside fellow Senior Leadership Figure, General Manager Dog Action. “Or, en anglaise, HELLO, MONTREAL!”
Action and Stansman are the new Senior Leadership Team at the Montreal Blazers, transplanted from the warm-but-definitely-not-Rio-De-Janiero climes of Sao Paulo by the good fellows at RAMJACK Consultative Consultants. Both were warmly welcomed by a collection of their employees outside the mind-bendingly spacious Ubisoft Park, as the job of turning the Blazers into a slightly worse but more profitable version of themselves began in earnest.
***
It’s a tough task facing the Stansman-Action tandem, with the de Blazers having ended up with a 73-89 record despite a 16-12 September . The farm system, although ranked 19th on the back of 3 good pitching prospects, doesn’t have much to offer the offence, and two key players in ace Don Jaramillo leaving, and 4-time all-star catcher Joe Bradshaw excercising their contract opt-outs. It has also shipped out the majority of its minor-league lifers and hangers-on in the kind of cull of a farm population not seen since Stalin or, indeed, that time RAMJACK bought into Big Quinoa.
***
Stansman spoke thus: “Can I start by saying we are delighted to have joined the team? It’s a true centre of baseball excellence. It falls to us as custodians of this high office to capture the spirit of the 2011 team and bring a championship back to the city and the people. It's an honour and a privilege that we will absorb and reflect going forward”
A pause for effect.
“And for our French speaking brethren, let me translate. Nous sommes happy d'avoir joined le club. C'est un center d'excellence d’baseball… …. …. Je voudrais un championship trophy. Je t’aime le Montreal. Je ne regrette rien. Comme ci, comme ca”
A pause for greater effect.
“We are delighted to move forward, and cannot wait to being working with Bill Inkster and the remainder of his coaches. When I think of all the great managers who prioritise smallball, and think about smallball, I think of Bill’s ball as the smallest of all, but yet he’s had the most success with it”
Stansman made no attempt to translate this last section. Such was the power of the address, it hardly needed it. Bof!
Bill Inkster, small, personable, decent balls
*RAMJACK Consultative Consultants is in no way affiliated to RAMJACK Venture Capitalism, the ex-owners of Sao Paulo Pilots, other than both being part of the same parent company the RAMJACK Corporation. There is no links between the two companies and this is definitely (absolutement) not a conflict of interests.
