Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Notable Quotables From Padres Annual Meeting.
-- Former Dodgers' employee Paul DePodesta started out his talk by saying that every other management person on stage with him has a specific role. His own role is to be "in charge of making sure we beat the Dodgers." Longtime Dodger hating Padres fans loved that one.
-- Padres announcer Ted Leitner asked Kevin Kouzmanoff to talk about how he handled his terrible first month of the season when he struggled at the plate and there was talk of sending him down to the minor leagues. Kouzmanoff gave a lot of credit to support from his teammates and then talked about how the hardest thing he endured was when the local paper did a headline that put multiple K's in Kouzmanoff's name after he had struck out more than once the night before. He said he "learned from that newspaper clipping not to read the newspaper."
His story reminded me of hearing former United States Attorney Carol Lam speak about how her husband used to get the newspaper before she had a chance to read it in the morning, and how he would cut out the articles that criticized her to protect her feelings.
Both these stories are reminders that those who do their jobs in public are real people with real feelings.
-- Former Dodgers pitcher Randy Wolf talked about playing against the Padres and said about coming to San Diego, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
-- But by far the best anecdote of the night came from Padres CEO Sandy Alderson after General Manager Kevin Towers announced to everybody that Kosuke Fukudome would not be playing for the Padres next year. Alderson said he had been in a meeting that morning when somebody asked him how to pronounce "that Japanese outfielder's last name." Alderson said that if the outfielder signed with the Padres, he'd pronounce it Foo-koo-dough-may, the way they pronounce it in Japan. But if he didn't sign with the Padres .... And then Alderson paused, said nothing more, let the crowd think about "Fukudome," sat back, and let the laughter roll over him.
-tdr
-- Padres announcer Ted Leitner asked Kevin Kouzmanoff to talk about how he handled his terrible first month of the season when he struggled at the plate and there was talk of sending him down to the minor leagues. Kouzmanoff gave a lot of credit to support from his teammates and then talked about how the hardest thing he endured was when the local paper did a headline that put multiple K's in Kouzmanoff's name after he had struck out more than once the night before. He said he "learned from that newspaper clipping not to read the newspaper."
His story reminded me of hearing former United States Attorney Carol Lam speak about how her husband used to get the newspaper before she had a chance to read it in the morning, and how he would cut out the articles that criticized her to protect her feelings.
Both these stories are reminders that those who do their jobs in public are real people with real feelings.
-- Former Dodgers pitcher Randy Wolf talked about playing against the Padres and said about coming to San Diego, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em."
-- But by far the best anecdote of the night came from Padres CEO Sandy Alderson after General Manager Kevin Towers announced to everybody that Kosuke Fukudome would not be playing for the Padres next year. Alderson said he had been in a meeting that morning when somebody asked him how to pronounce "that Japanese outfielder's last name." Alderson said that if the outfielder signed with the Padres, he'd pronounce it Foo-koo-dough-may, the way they pronounce it in Japan. But if he didn't sign with the Padres .... And then Alderson paused, said nothing more, let the crowd think about "Fukudome," sat back, and let the laughter roll over him.
-tdr
