Notes from the Diamond #9: How About Never
February 3, 2020·4 comments·In Brief
Organizations hide corruption far better than outsiders can detect it. Years of intensive scrutiny, analysis, and due diligence still fail to reveal what insiders know. The question isn't whether you can find the rot before trusting an organization. It's what you're willing to bet when you know you probably can't.
• The 2017 Astros won a World Series using systematically stolen signs. Despite years of close external analysis of the franchise, nobody from outside discovered it until a former player broke the silence two years later.
• This isn't unique to baseball. Ken Fisher's investment firm grew to $100 billion in assets under management while allegedly harboring fundamental character problems at its core. Extensive diligence by sophisticated allocators missed what was apparently there all along.
• The Boston Red Sox ownership praised their GM as the permanent leader, then fired him 62 days later. Months after that reversal, they discovered their World Series-winning manager had broken rules as an Astro, forcing another reversal.
• When organizations don't enforce basic standards of integrity at the moment they matter most, the damage compounds. Late accountability looks identical to no accountability, except worse, because it undermines everything achieved in between.
• If the most closely watched and intensely analyzed institutions still hide foundational corruption, what assumptions should you make about the ones you don't watch as carefully? What should you actually trust in that condition?
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Comments
This is excellent, I appreciate the fearless moral clarity.
Another mind-expanding column, Rusty. I hope George F. Will is a subscriber. His towering intellect and knowledge of baseball would appreciate your insight, from once suggesting that the proliferation of new and trendy food times should have the Home Plate ump shout “Das Gustibus” instead of “Play Ball” as the last two words of the National Anthem to his observations in Men at Work, a keen insight into Tony LaRussa, Tony Gwynn, Orel Hirsheiser and Cal Ripken Jr. have stood the test of time. Oh yeah and one last thing as Columbo used to say. I think Joe Maddon is a genius, given what he was able to do with the Rays during his tenure here. Management bought into it and nobody has ever delivered more bang for the buck, except perhaps Billy Beane…
Thanks, Eric. I don’t know if fearless is apt here. But to the extent Note #9 plus others in the series shed useful light on perceived moral failings, credit for powering that light should be given primarily to ET’s guiding spirits, Messrs. Hunt and Guinn.
Thanks for your comments, Bob. 'Tis interesting to note that Mr. LaRussa has been credibly accused of having orchestrated during his tenure as Chisox manager impermissible sign stealing similar to what the '17 Astros executed. One wonders whether and to what extent Mr. Will has modified his highly favorable assessment of LaRussa since the publication of “Men At Work” in light of more recent revelations respecting LaRussa’s corner-cutting methods. FWIW, I still think highly of LaRussa as a baseball strategist and on-field manager, albeit less highly than I did when “Men At Work” was published initially in 1990.
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