Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Smizik smack down

Bob Smizik wrote a bitingly humorous article on the failures of the McClatchy era in today's PG. Essentially, Smizik takes McClatchy to task for his recent belly-aching about other owners' spending habits by rightfully pointing out some of the ridiculous spending McClatchy himself has perpetrated.

Faster than you can say Kendall, Meares, Young, and Bell, Smizik makes the point that McClatchy is himself guilty of overspending for mediocrity or less. Of course, this is not covering new ground and Smizik's hindsight is 20/20.

I searched the Post Gazette's archive to see what Smizik had to say about the decisions he was now mocking. Unfortunately, the archive only dates back to late 2000 which predates the Meares and Young signings. I wasn't able to find any instant analysis of the Bell contract, but I did find the following article written about Kendall's 'new' contract. Smizik certainly didn't criticize it then. He went so far as to say, "They had to sign Kendall, and if it took $60 million over six seasons to do it, so be it."

Anyway, it's all a bunch of crying over spilled milk. None of those players will have anything to do with the success/failure of the Bucs in 2005 and beyond. It's fun to make light of an easy target like McClatchy (and I do it all the time), but I wish the folks who get paid for this stuff could give us real information. But I doubt that Smizik even knows where the Bucs high A level team is located (it's in Hickory, NC).

posted by bkopec @ 11:00 PM   4 comments