David Glass says credit belongs to others

When the Royals clinched their first playoff berth since 1985 with a 3-1 win over the Chicago White Sox on Friday at U.S. Cellular Field, owner and CEO David Glass was present but not much in view.

That was by design, and for a few reasons … including the prospect of getting doused in champagne.

“I did not put goggles on, and I stayed just out of reach so I didn’t get sprayed,” he said, laughing, as he stood in the home dugout before the Royals’ AL wild card game against Oakland on Tuesday at Kauffman Stadium. “I think Dayton (Moore, the Royals’ general manager) planned on not being sprayed, but they poured it all over him.”

But Glass, 79, didn’t avoid the spotlight just to stay dry.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time; I really haven’t had anything to do with it, though,” said Glass, who was appointed interim chairman and CEO of the Royals upon the death of Ewing Kauffman in 1993 and acquired the team on a permanent basis in 2000.

“My son (Dan, the president) runs the team, and he and Dayton and Dayton’s people and the manager and the coaches deserve all the credit.

“They’re the ones who put the team together and assembled the players. And I get in free and get to watch the games.”

Glass considers Moore the architect of the turnaround from a franchise that lost 100 or more games four times in five years as of 2006, the summer in which Moore was hired, and, not coincidentally, Glass began investing more substantially in the product.

“If you’re going to hire a general manager and give him the responsibility to do it, then stay out of it,” Glass said. “If I’m going to direct his activities, specifically, then you don’t need him.

“So you hire the right guy and you make it work.”

No doubt Glass considers Moore just that after he revived the once-proud franchise.

Moore is considered a possible target of the Atlanta Braves, his former employer, to fill their vacant GM job, but Moore last week told The Star he doesn’t expect that to matter.

“It’s not like employer-employee relationships, or anything. It’s more like Dayton’s a part of the family,” Glass said. “We’re all working together to get to the World Series. He’s got that commitment out there. I’m not concerned about that.”

His only concern on Tuesday was the game ahead.

“We’ve been a long time getting here,” he said. “And I was a Royals fan long before I got directly involved with the team, and I’ve seen the fans in Kansas City and what a great baseball town it is.

“And they deserve a winning team, and they deserve this kind of excitement. And my only hope is that we can win this game (Tuesday) and keep it going for them.”

Manfred impressed — Baseball commissioner-elect Rob Manfred took about a 30 minute walk in downtown Kansas City before the game Tuesday and was taken aback by what he saw.

“The level of excitement in this market is unbelievable, and it seemed like every other person had a Royals shirt on,” Manfred said, standing outside the Royals dugout before the American League Wild Card Game with the Oakland A’s. “It was just great.”

Manfred will transition from Major League Baseball’s chief operating officer to the commissioner’s job in January. Bud Selig will hand the Commissioner’s Trophy to the World Series winner this year. That will be Manfred’s job starting in 2015.

His first postseason encounter as commissioner-elect matches two small-market franchises with payrolls ranking in baseball’s bottom half. The Royals started the year around $92 million, which ranked 19th. The A’s, at $83.4 million, ranked 25th, according to The Associated Press.

Also in the playoffs are the Pittsburgh Pirates, 27th at $78.1 million.

Three of the top teams in terms of payroll, the Yankees, Phillies and Red Sox, did not reach the postseason.

“It demonstrates that markets like Oakland and Kansas City can be in this game, and we have the economic structure that allows them to compete,” Manfred said. “We have a great mix of teams in the postseason.”

Manfred, who spent 15 years as baseball’s executive vice-president for labor relations and led negotiations that resulted in three collective bargaining agreements, rattled off the history.

With the Royals ending their postseason drought of nearly three decades, only the Blue Jays, Mariners and Marlins haven’t appeared in the postseason since 2004.

And even after adding the Wild Card Games three years ago, baseball remains the most exclusive of postseason clubs. Only five of 15 teams in each league reach the playoffs each season.

Clearly, the larger markets have an advantage. Baseball has no salary cap. The Dodgers were free to have the payroll of $235 million. The Royals cannot. The Dodgers are in the playoffs for the fourth time in seven years. The Royals are unlikely to retain Tuesday’s starting pitcher, James Shields, who will become one of the best players on the free-agent market after this season.

“We know and understand who we are,” Royals general manger Dayton Moore said. “We’ve got to grow from within. We’re not going to be players on the free agent market. We just aren’t. … It’s obviously got to fit with what our payroll structure is.”

But here the Royals are, in the postseason with the commissioner-elect in the stands.

“A team like Kansas City is good for our business, just like Boston is good our business,” Manfred said.

This story was originally published October 1, 2014 at 12:27 AM with the headline "David Glass says credit belongs to others."