John Sherman’s open letter is ridiculous

John Sherman likes being in the news.

That is the only conclusion I can come to after reading his open letter, released Tuesday afternoon. It contains one (1) instance of celebrity worship, one (1) instance of advertising for the existing stadium, one (1) instance of telling us he’s going to give us more information about the new ballpark he wants someone else to build for him, and one (1) instance of insisting that his new stadium will somehow do something that no other new stadium has ever done.

So, John Sherman is fresh off having finally gotten the (alleged) bad-faith negotiations with his in-stadium union workers completed. It’s been a couple weeks since his ill-fated press conference. His team is so bad that no one really wants to talk about their deadline prospects because their trade assets are significantly worse than a number of other teams. Neither he nor his business team have managed to make any headway on the new stadium so no one is talking about that, either. Time to release an open letter that shares absolutely no new information. A continuation of his process since the very first announcement (that also surprised no one) that he wanted to build a downtown stadium with surrounding real estate development opportunities for him and his co-owners to exploit.

He cannot seem to just let things sit until there is something to say. He constantly has to be making press conferences and open letters begging everyone to remember that he wants their money. It’s frankly bizarre.

Imagine I wrote tweets (or are they xeets now?) every couple of weeks saying I wanted my followers to help me pay for a new computer for writing on. In those tweets, I would say that my computer was a little outdated for gaming, but that it would cost even more to upgrade it than to just buy a new computer with all of the pieces I want (and I would, obviously, offer no proof of this.) And if anyone asks me what specs I want the new computer to have I tell them, “I’ll have that information for you later, but I need you to promise me your money now. I promise it will make my writing better and ensure that internet writing about the Royals thrives well into the future!” Over and over and over again.

Some people would probably have some questions, right? Like, why should they pay for me to get a new computer for writing when the one I have is perfectly good for that task and only suffers when I try to game on it, something which doesn’t actually benefit them? Or, how can I know that it would cost more to upgrade my existing PC when I can’t even tell them what parts or specs I want? Or what my computer has to do with all of the other people who write about the Royals on the internet?

I can’t imagine people would listen to me do that for very long but John Sherman has been doing it for over a year. The only reason anyone is still listening to him is because he has a lot of money and/or he owns our favorite baseball team. I am less and less impressed with him with every passing day. When first he bought the team, I celebrated along with everyone else, believing that he couldn’t possibly be more of a spendthrift than we believe David Glass to have been; hoping he would fire Moore quickly and quickly return the team to a competitive state.

As it turns out, however, sometimes it’s better the devil you know (though, yeah, obviously David Glass as an owner isn’t an option anymore.) Not only has Sherman been absolutely as much of a spendthrift as Glass, but he’s also similarly refused to make the front office changes that many have asked for, and, on top of that, he appears to be even more narcissistic and greedy with his constant, public obsessing over his new stadium - and don’t forget the accompanying real estate development opportunities!

He keeps saying people are asking him about his new stadium. If this is true, I don’t see any evidence of it. Royals team tweets are bombarded with replies complaining about the on-field product. No one ever mentions the new stadium unless Sherman mentions it first. Even on the tweet containing his open letter a significant portion of the replies are about the team. A few of them mention both, usually in the form of demanding he stop worrying about a new stadium and fix the team.

If Sherman thought about the fans at all, he would stop acting as though the only thoughts in our heads were about his vanity real estate project. He would have authorized greater spending during the past off-season so that the team’s biggest free agent signing would be a starting pitcher known for not being very good but who is able to pitch a lot of innings. He would stop treating people as if they’re too stupid to realize that the promises of economic boons are empty.

If Sherman really cared about the fans he wouldn’t have a vanity real estate project. He wouldn’t even be a billionaire. But John Sherman doesn’t care about the fans. John Sherman cares only about John Sherman.