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4/28/26 30 Years, 300 GMs (exaggerated for effect)We just played our 30th season with human managers. This seems like a good time to thank the long-serving GMs of this league, without whom the league would have long since ceased to exist.
That’s 15 GMs who have been with us 20 or more seasons, and a total of 21 who have been with us at least ten! A few more are just a season or two away from hitting the 10+ mark. We were also fortunate to have had a handful of others who stuck around for 10, 20 years before moving on. Almost makes it seem like it’s easy to find a good GM, doesn’t it? Well, it isn’t. Take a look at this page (LINK). Look at all the one-year wonders. Look at all the 2-3 year wonders. Out of 98 GMs not named “Placeholder” (more on those later) on this list, I counted a whopping 56 who were in the league 3 years or less. That’s not even counting the ones who aren’t on this list (you have to have managed at least one game to be on the list, but there are several people who “joined” the league and didn’t even get that far). The point is, while we’ve had a lot of GMs who have stuck around for a while, “here-and-gone” GMs outnumber “sticky” GMs by a good bit. A good GM is, indeed, hard to find. I did want to congratulate/thank the GMs whose patience and dedication have kept this league afloat lo these many years (Congratulations! Thank you!), but I had another motive for pointing out how difficult it is to find reliable GMs. I have a proposal. Prior to our 1960 season, when a team was without a GM, I allowed the A.I. to handle the team while I occasionally checked in to see that injuries hadn’t left it unable to field a lineup or fill out a rotation. Starting in 1960 I began creating fake GM accounts (using the surname “Placeholder”) for vacant teams, and at some point after this (not exactly sure when, but probably not too long after 1960), I began enlisting the help of our membership to take over these teams on an interim basis. I’m not sure I remember everyone who served in this capacity on at least one occasion, but off the top of my head I will mention the following: Will Albrecht, Jim Burns, Ray Fleetwood, Doug Martin, Daniel Mays, Mark Velez and Vincent Wicker. (Did I forget anyone? Apologies, and let me know!) These people all did excellent work with their temporary teams. Oh yes, my proposal: I propose that we allow “double-duty” GMing on a permanent basis. I recently took on the Knicks as interim GM. I would like to run them the same way I’ve always run the Seagulls, i.e., formulating an actual plan for their long-term future and aggressively attempting to improve them, rather than just “baby-sitting” them until their next GM comes along. Since history tells us “their next GM” is more likely to be another transitory figure in our lives than a real GM who sticks around long enough to see them through multiple ascent/decline phases, I’d just as soon proactively relieve that gentleman of his duties, and hold onto the Knicks as my permanent second team. And the next time we have a vacancy, instead of recruiting some rando, I will first ask if one of the many known-to-be-reliable members of this league want to take on a second team permanently. Recruiting unknowns will be done only if no one here wants the job. I propose the following rules for “permanently double-duty” GMs:
Free agency and the draft might potentially create weird conflicts of interest (i.e., both your teams want the same player), but I don’t see that as an insurmountable problem. Since bidding against yourself wouldn’t do either of your teams any favors, the best solution would be to try to determine which of your two teams needed the player more, and allow that team to pursue him while your other team backed off. Is this a great idea? A terrible idea? Discuss in the #double_duty channel in Slack. |