Before I go too far into this particular blog, I want to let you know that while the playoffs and our run for a fourth straight championship is very important to everyone in the Cats’ organization, we have to admit to being a little distracted by “real life” priorities right now.

Our “First Lady”, Linda Bell is at the top of everyone’s prayer list these days.  I don’t want to intrude on her (and Carl’s) privacy but I don’t think it is a secret around the ballpark that Linda is dealing with some very serious health issues at this time.  Many people have asked “where is Carl?”.  He is right where he should be…. at Linda’s bedside.  I am confident that she will be well again soon and Carl will be back at his familiar spot behind section J….   He told me he might try to make it over next week!  I hope he will have to do that!

We are also thinking about our own Dick Smith, who fell ill last night at the ballgame.  Dick was taken to Harris Hospital and is receiving excellent treatment there.  Again, in the interest of Dick’s privacy I will ask you all to pray for him and that he will be back at the ballpark again soon. 

On a more cheerfuI note, we want to thank several members of our Knothole Gang booster club for meeting the team bus early Sunday morning as the boys pulled in after an overnight ride from El Paso.  They had clinched the second half title out there and itmeant a lot to the team for fans to get up early on a Sunday morning and greet them with coffee, juice, fruit, donuts, kolaches, cookies and other snacks.  I don’t want to leave anyone out, so I won’t name names, but let me give you a hint on a couple of the people….  there was a big blue Cats’ flag being waved and cowbells were ringing!   There were a couple of other “props” that didn’t work quite as well as planned, but you’ll have to ask someone in the group to explain that incident!  Anyway…. thank you all… you know who you are and I hope you know how much our team appreciated it.  I heard many of the players express their thanks to those who were handing out the fo od and generally providing a warm “welcome home”.  This year’s team is a good group…. both ON and OFF the field.

Today is a tough day.  You would think it would get easier as we get older, more experienced and (supposedly) wiser.  But it doesn’t.

Looking back, a quick count tells me that this is the 17th time in our 35 pro seasons that we’ve been in the post-season derby.  Seems by this time, I should be able to shrug off some pressure….. WRONG!

When a team makes it into the post season everyone involved with the team from the owner, to the coaches and players, to the staff and, of course the most important people…. the FANS….  can feel how close we have come to the BIG PRIZE.  Once we get that close, we start thinking…… wow…. we’re just two or three wins away from winning everything!   Then, there is a tension and pressure that we all feel to get it done.  But, we have to remember, the guys in the other dugout, the players, coaches, trainers, staff and FANS of the other team have the same feeling, including the pressure and tension.

What we all need to understand is the fact that this IS a rivalry and that we want to win just as badly as they do.  Rivalries can be a good thing.  I think it is great that their fans came over in pretty good numbers to root them on.  I didn’t hear anything negative about the cheering… I think they kept the cheers and calls from the stands positive.

We have some fans who take delight in “insulting” the other team’s players.  I don’t agree with this, and we have actually asked some of them not to return after getting complaints from several season ticket holders and other fans in the vicinity of heckling fans.   In my opinion, heckling and insulting the other team only serves to motivate them to want to try harder to beat us and also makes for a very uncomfortable and non-family atmosphere.   We do receive e-mails about these kind of fans from time to time, and they are NOT positive emails.  I’ve never gotten an e-mail saying “the heckler sitting near me and my family was hilarious and made our experience more enjoyable”….   but fans do write to say that they were feeling very uncomfortable due to this kind of thing.

Another reason I do not like insulting or heckling is the fact that it is always possible that we will acquire a player from another team.  On our current team, Brian Fryer, Ed Montague, Paul Bartolucci, Jon Hunton, Pedro Flores, Aaron Sisk and Tim Haines have all played against the Cats at LaGrave Field.  It is hard to imagine how uncomfortable they probably feel when they first come out in a Cats’ uniform and hear some ugly remarks being directed at the other teams and remember when it was directed at them.

A lot of hecklers think that the “banter” they dish out is humorous… and sometimes, it can be a little funny.  They delight in getting a reaction from the player they are heckling and they seem to think that the players think it fun or funny.  Most of the time the players try to laugh as a means of sending a message that it is not bothering them, even though it is.  Fortunately, most players refrain from getting personal with fans and usually handle it quite well.  We did have an incident a couple of seasons ago when a Pensacola player became quite enraged at some of the things that were being said and he reacted very poorly and inappropriately.  Naturally, that is a nightmare of a situation.  On one hand, we have to get the player, who is NOT EVEN ON OUR OWN TEAM and thus, not completely under our control, to calm down…. and on the other hand, we have to get the people who are now cranked up and yelling some pretty ugly things to STOP.& nbsp; When this kind of thing gets fueled up… it can turn pretty vulgar and even sometimes threatening.  Last season, several fans asked me to deal with a fan who had made a very ugly sign with a very negative and borderline vulgar message.  I took his sign away (admittedy I could have been a little more tactful) and he told me he was going to be waiting for me in the parking lot!   I don’t think a civil discussion of the merits of his sign was what he had in mind.  Ironically, most of the people I know who are prone to this type of behavior are completely different when they are not sitting in stadium seats. �

That’s why we are saying that a rivalry like the Cats and AirHogs can be a good thing, as long as it is kept in the proper perspective.  And, with the tension involved in playoff baseball between two rivals, ugly chants, insults, foul language and generally unprofessional behavior creates a ripe opportunity for things to get out of hand.  We (the Cats) have had some incidents of unproffesional behavior in our history, and we have taken direct and immediate action to correct those situations.  I hope this type of behavior on the part of the Cats never occurs again.  If it were to happen again, we promise to deal with it swiftly and correctly as we have in the past.

There are two descriptions that ballplayers often use to describe the actions and other circumstances that surround them during the season…. “Big League” is one, meaning “classy” or “first class”…. and “Bush League”, meaning “second rate” or “undesirable” is the other.  Many of the managers and coaches in our league have been in the big leagues.  In our dugout, we have Wayne Terwilliger in that category.  He exemplifies the class and dignity that a true “major leaguer” in the best sense of being a “major leaguer”.  Our manager, Chad Tredaway is a true professional.  He did not play in the big leagues (his did play AAA and was traded for a big league manager!).  But he carries himself like a big leaguer.

We want to win.  Our players and coaches are putting a lot of pressure on themselves to repeat as champions for the fourth time.  Chad Tredaway is acutely aware that he was hired to continue a tradition of winning.  We also know that everyone outside of the city limits of Fort Worth wants someone other than the Fort Worth Cats to be champions of the American Association.   We are the only repeating team in the American Association playoffs this season.  Our players and coaches have high standards for themselves.  They don’t have to be told that there is pressure to repeat, because they are winners and they play to win.

Each team reflects the character and professionalism of the leadership….. they can act like major leaguers or they can act like bush leaguers….. 

 The four teams in our American Association playoffs are all excellent ballclubs.  The management, staff, coaches and players of all four teams are all to be commended for their excellent seasons.  We salute them….  we congratulate them….. we’re proud to be their “partners” in the American Association….. at the same time, from the first pitch to the last pitch of every game, we will try to beat them…. when it’s over…. we hope that the winners, be it Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Sioux City or Sioux Falls, will handle it in “major league” style.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am and is filed under From the Desk of the President. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.