Nats president Kasten on Turner vs. Lerner
By: Jim Williams
Examiner Sports Columnist
October 5, 2009
Washington Nationals president Stan Kasten talked about a number of very interesting topics on this week’s edition of “The Sports Take with Sports Professor Rick Horrow” that can be seen Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m.
It is a wide ranging interview that covers a great deal of ground but here are a few of the many topics about the Nationals and baseball in general:
On the Washington Nationals » “We know that the record on the field is deplorable and every night that you lose. No matter how many years I’ve been doing this, I still can’t sleep after a loss. So that’s hard, but it’s easier for me in some respect because I don’t just have to focus on the standings or just on the score like fans do. That’s all we need to ask them to do. They don’t have to pay attention to the other things. It’s not their job. It’s our job to focus on the big picture. And that’s made it easier for me because our big picture is so good and we are moving in the right track according to the plan we put in place and annunciated very clearly on our first day on the job. It’s similar, not just to what happened in Atlanta, but what has happened in city after city after city that has had success, but not just success, but sustained success, which is what we’re after.”
On whether Steven Strasburg is transformative to the franchise? » “No, you don’t have those kind of players in baseball. I tell people all the time it could happen in the NBA. In the NBA, you draft Shaquille O’Neill, you go to the finals. It can be done that quickly. That’s not how baseball works. Baseball has always been about 25 players and to get the 25 players, I need 250 players in the minor leagues both domestically and internationally. So one player, no matter how good he is, has never transformed a franchise. A possible exception is Babe Ruth, but certainly no one since then.”
On Ted Turner vs. Ted Lerner »“[They] couldn’t be more different except in the core business sense of understanding long term visions. I think they’re both great at that and that’s a critical element in building a franchise. ... Ted Turner, is the epitome of publicity. He is a human publicity machine. It’s what he lives, breathes and creates on his own. Ted Lerner couldn’t be more different — a family-run business, used to doing business, privately, confidentially staying out of the public eye.”
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on washingtonexaminer.com.
