More On Frank White's Firing: Frank White Speaks Out, Dayton Moore's Role, Etc

I’m indifferent on this whole thing. It will be forgotten by spring training.

it would be hard not to become bitter about the whole thing. I’ve certainly experienced that as an employee. Where there wasn’t a reciprocated respect from the employer, it was hard to maintain a positive outlook on things, which certainly permeates your outlook on the employer when talking about them privately. I’ve never really gone into the situation with a negative outlook on the first place and have been content at my last two jobs, yet in those other jobs where a modicum of respect wasn’t present I found myself complaining when the job would come up.

Is Frank White at least a bit to blame for that? Sure. But what was the root of those problems? It could be a character flaw with Frank himself, but I’d be more inclined to believe that it was a product of a guy whose request to be in a goodwill ambassador in the community via the PR department to wait out his last few years before retirement was met with a dismissive, “No, thank you.”

The people involved in “upper management” are tired of Frank because he sticks around wanting to contribute in some way, so they are constantly doing things trying to drive him away. It’s like a person trying to get their significant other not to like them so the other person will break up the relationship. But Frank just kept waiting around. And during that time, he spoke with a lot of people who were sympathetic to his situation, but those people went and spoke with some other people. So it got out that Frank wasn’t happy and was talking about the “upper management” badly. BUT… all he ever really wanted is to be respected and to be treated the same as every other former baseball player. The way this business is run, it doesn’t make sense. Frank seems to have been singled out. I understand if they don’t want to give him the managing job, but you bring him in to Spring Training to work with players and let him continue some instruction into the season.

What I take from this is that the Royals don’t want their former players sticking around and taking on somewhat ceremonial roles. As far as I know, every other team does it, but if you’re going to stick around with the Royals, you better be George Brett, or you better get really good at your job (Splittorff).

Considering I’ve only started following the Royals recently, and wasn’t alive during the glory days, and wasn’t around for the shithole that ensued after….But I can comment that the Royals fucked up big time, I can understand that they might not want Frank back for reasons. But the reasons that they listed are bullshit, they need to realize that the Royals legends are due respect and this FO is really making me pissed

Even as far back as say, five to seven years ago, I remember listening to sports radio and every once in awhile (whenever the Royals were in need of a new manager) hearing the rumblings of Frank White in AA wanting the job, even on the interim, and he was always turned down cap in hand or wasn’t considered at all.

The most similar case I can think of from a separate sport is in the NFL, when Mike Singletary was essentially the token black interview (since the NFL requires a minority interview) for a decade or more before getting a job with the 49ers.

I am willing to bet that the major breaking point, though, was when they brought in Ned Yost in that arbitrary official capacity where no one knew what his job was, but everyone knew it was pretty clear that he was brought in to take over when Trey Hillman failed out. The fact that Frank White had been serving in an official capacity, in an actual role, doing actual work, and to know for six months or however long it was between Yost’s hiring and Hillman’s firing that you were not going to ever be considered for the one thing that you had always wanted to do before you retired, which is coach the team, your hometown team, that you played for, that you won titles and championships for.

I imagine that was pretty demoralizing for him.

at least one of the current players (Alex) respected his knowledge and coaching ability. For the organization not to at least ask him to help with defense, something that the organization has struggled with for sometime is a sign of their ignorance. Whether they like the man or not he was a talented player who could help them in one aspect of the game. Their paranoia needs to stop.

In the end whether GMDM is the one behind this move it comes down to it being David Glass’s fault. He owns the team and at anytime could’ve stepped up and told GMDM to play nice because the Royals need Frank White. Instead he decided to trim a little salary and push out a Royals and Kansas City legend.

Frank wasn’t particularly good at his job and he was fired. I really don’t much care why. If they thought he was too negative…ok. I guess that’s not great, but every team is going to make sure anyone broadcasting their games is going to be positive. I guess the Royals didn’t handle it as well as they could, but they were firing him (or at least not renewing his contract), so he was going to be pissed regardless.

I don’t know. The Royals didn’t owe him that job. It wasn’t his right as a Royals icon. It was a job. He didn’t do it very well. Now they are trying someone else. I care about this a lot less than who gets the last spot on the bench coming out of spring training…and that isn’t very important.

I have received 2 separate comments on my Royals cap at the Philadelphia airport. Neither of them were trash talk. Improvement? I think so.

might as well just announce that they’re firing Denny Matthews this offseason too. Might as well take the hit while they already appear to be callous and petty.

Here’s a blurb from the Royals site:

“FOX Sports Midwest general manager Jack Donovan told me that it was a joint decision between FOX and the Kansas City Royals, and the Royals were unhappy with the job that I was doing,” Shank said. “Jack Donovan said that FOX was very happy with the job I had been doing since I’d been working for them.”

So, it was a joint decision between FOX and the Royals, but only the Royals wanted Shank out?

Link: http://kansascity.royals.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20111202&content_id=26080776&vkey=news_kc&c_id=kc

Is that the problem here? That the Royals aren’t giving Frank some job and it’s their responsibility to employ him for life?

He would have done awful, the team would have been awful, and he would have been fired, which would have led to him no longer being a beloved Royal.

This way, he gets to still be a beloved Royal, and the Royals come off looking poorly.

I’d say this was the better deal for White.

This is a really weird situation and I hope Frank and the Royals can make up and find some common ground to work together in the future.

Sums up my views pretty well. Plenty o’ blame to go around by a lot of entitled people.

this has Dean Taylor’s fingerprints all over it!

And do they remove the statue in CF?

for the most part, I’m indifferent.

I can remember a few times when he had been a little judgmental about the team, but he had right to be judgmental because we have sucked for 20+ years.

On particular incident is way back during the trade deadline, when we were talking about how the Royals weren’t going to trade many players at the deadline. I remember Frank saying something like ’Well, I think it would be a good idea for the Royals to trade French…". And then he just stopped. I pictured some Royals FO guy standing back in the broadcast booth giving Frank the evil eye. (I think we were playing the Red Sox at Fenway back during the deadline when this happened).

However, I am pretty much indifferent. I don’t think Frank was that good of a broadcaster, but the very least they could do was make him a coach or FO guy at some level. But I think that’s about it.

We still have the ability to win games next season, and that’s all I really care about.