Vanni's Goals

[Ghosts]

Niihama, Japan - 30 October, 2032


Smiling gregariously, dressed in his customary Ghosts-green silk blazer, and awash in the late afternoon’s October sunshine, Ghosts owner Vanni Bruno spoke gently but firmly, “Come on now, Ms. Chambers, I know you’re no longer my assistant but surely you can spare time to review the goals I set out for you and that absentee boss of yours. Where is my GM, anyway?”

Vanessa Chambers, fresh off her first season as Assistant GM, knew this was coming. Her boss had warned her, but that was, of course, completely unnecessary. She’d sat it on these meetings as Vanni’s assistant for years. Each time it seemed more arbitrary and agonizingly off-base. Previous GMs had bowed to a lot of Vanni’s absurd demands in years past. She had no idea where he got these ideas. Her best guess was that other owners planted them in his head as a joke or a bet during one of the many obnoxious parties he held on his ridiculous boat. She loved Vanni, but in the way one loves a senile Aunt or a neighbor’s elderly dog. She’d rather be reviewing scouting reports by that hack new Scouting Director, Dan Collins, than have to hear Vanni complain that Vail ignored his demands. She began to suspect Vail had only seen to her promotion to ensure he had a buffer between himself and their often eccentric owner.

“Of course, Vanni, let’s talk it over,” Vanessa replied gracefully. She approached his oversized mahogany desk, which she’d acquired for him after several attempts to appease his Napoleon syndrome with larger, more ornate, and more expensive options. This desk, she recalled, cost more than her annual salary when Vanni had finally approved of her choice. She’d fixed that in the next year’s budget, and Vanni never seemed to notice, so she couldn’t get too upset with his choices.

Vanni sat at his desk, adjusted himself in every way imaginable, and then looked up at his favorite employee. He beamed as he reached for the portfolio on the corner of his desk. That leather-bound collection of hand-written notes was the lone media Vanni used to mold his multibillion-dollar enterprise. In it were sporadic notes and figures, some of which were poor facsimiles of elaborate charts produced by his front office, most others his musings or notes from phone calls with other owners. Reading it had been one of the keys to her success in the organization to-date. Knowing her boss’s mind, even if he may have qualified as insane, was paramount to navigating his whims without tripping up.

She’d guarded that portfolio intensely as his assistant, but realized now that she hadn’t looked it over in months. Suddenly shaken in her unpreparedness, like a kid who showed up to class and realized it was test day, Vanessa cursed herself. She’d laughed as so many other personnel begged and pleaded with Vanni to see reason or to at least explain his thought process as Vanni brushed off their logic and bruised up their egos. Now, she would have to be the one trying to navigate the tumult of Vanni Bruno’s owner goals meeting, and she hadn’t even made the decisions that were likely to turn this meeting sour. She didn’t even know that the damn goals were.

She smirked to herself when she saw Vail read them over and promptly shred the hand-written list Vanni had her deliver to him. At the time, Vail was new, and she was just the owner’s assistant. Vail had seemed better than many of his predecessors, but his dismissal of Vanni’s input was exactly the type of thing that had gotten many of them fired. She hadn’t read them, because she know she could always check Vanni’s portfolio, but then Vail started giving her more voice and more responsibility. She simply lost sight of her previous mindset.

Her self-flagellation was cut short by Vanni’s announcement, “Ah! Here we are. Took me a moment to find it,” Vanni grinned as he adjusted his reading glasses. “First, we have ‘Upgrade at Centerfield’. How did we do with that, my dear? I think not very well. I see Kokura hit .204 while last year, Mr. Delgado hit .227. How could we have failed so badly? Not only did we not improve, we got worse!” Vanni looked almost as serious as he ever got – only during their evacuation did he, maybe, look more serious.

There was so much wrong with everything Vanni had just said that it was legitimately alarming. He was comparing their playoff run in the WIL to their first rebuild year in PEBA. He was using batting average as a standalone metric for all-around performance. Of course, none of that would matter, so Vanessa simply said, “I see. That is disappointing.” She frowned and paused, seemingly giving the matter great consideration. “What I can say is this: I know we wanted better. Centerfield is a critical position for winning. Winning sells tickets. Tickets lead to profits, and that’s what makes the world go ‘round. On the other, though, Delgado was due arbitration after having earned $2.7M of your money in 2031, which would have meant we needed to pay him around $4-5M in 2032. He hit .209 in the minor leagues this year, so I think it’s likely that he would have done a little worse than Kokura did – and Kokura only cost the minimum. So that means an extra $4M or so in your pocket for the just doing the same, not too bad, right?”

Vanni shook his head in amazement. “Of course! I knew you wouldn’t let me down! You always know how to cheer up old Vanni! Now, what’s next? Ah yes, ‘Extend Dave Hurley’, how did we do there?”

Vanessa smiled and said, “We wanted to, but old Dave retired! I do know that he said there’s no owner he’d rather play for than Vanni Bruno, but his playing days were behind him now. I think he's planning on buying a boat and sailing the Mediterranean.” Vanessa left out the part about him refusing the team’s offer of a minor league contract and signing with the Alleghenies. He was retired now, so there was no real lie there. Except for the part about wanting to play for Vanni and the Ghosts. The boat thing could be true.


Vanni furrowed his brow and nodded. “I understand, I really do. I knew I liked that guy for a reason. Ok, on to the next one, ‘Improve starter’s ERA’.” Vanni looked up at Vanessa expectantly. The Ghosts, she knew, had finished 16th of 16 SL teams after having finished 5th of 6 WIL teams last season. The team had intentionally avoided putting any resources into pitching this season, instead chasing down every means of improving their farm system. As a result, they’d posted one of the worst years of pitching that any PEBA team had ever produced. Only a handful of teams had ever produced a team ERA worse than the 2032 Ghosts’ 5.59 team ERA.

Vanessa stared at Vanni for a brief moment, jaw slightly ajar, before replying, “You know we just dropped the ball there. I think we can do a lot better this, year, though!”

Vanni slumped a bit and explained, “Vanessa, my dear, ERA is important! It says how good our pitching is! And pitching is half of baseball! How can we be good and sell a lot of tickets and make a lot of money if we are bad at half of baseball?” He stared at her expectantly.

Vanessa waited a moment, steeling herself for the nauseating reply her response would bring as she sprung the ridiculous rhetorical trap, “We ca-“

“WE CAN’T,” Vanni interrupted, shaking his head in exaggerated exasperation.

“I’m going to kill Vail,” Vanessa thought to herself.

Vanni, now sweating in the sunlight as his simple rage built, continued, “And that brings me to my last goal for this season: ‘Achieve a winning record’. You weren’t even close! We won way more games last year! We were really bad this year!”

“Mr. Bruno, of course you are right. But I just want to point out that even though we lost a franchise record games, we set a franchise record for revenue and for attendance. We did that without needing to win this year and we earned you millions in profit! Next year, we’ll have even more profit for you, and we’ll do better in every one of these goals we talked about today, how does that sound?” Vanessa’s tone was soothing and assuring. It hadn’t always worked on Vanni, but talk of profits almost always snapped him out of a rage, and she banked hard that the combination would settle him here. She also knew it would be hard for them to find a worse centerfielder than Kokura, post a worse team ERA, or lose more than the 127 games they lost this season, so she wasn’t walking far out on a limb with her promises.

“Ah my dear, you always know what I need to hear. You are right, of course, the bottom line is the bottom line. I need to remember that and trust my new team that’s brought me profits two years in a row,” Vanni exhaled slowly and deliberately, wiping the sweat from his sun scorched brow.

Vanessa swiftly rose from her seat and headed for the door, making it most of the way before Vanni exclaimed, “Wait! We need to look at the goals for this next season!” Vanni scrambled to find his place amongst his notes as Vanessa stealthily backed toward the ornate wooden door that led to an end to this nonsense. “Ah, right, ‘Acquire a Golden Arm Winner’. Good thing we signed old ‘Tugboat’! I can cross that one off for us! See? You guys did some things right!”

Sliding herself past the threshold and turning back to Vanni, Vanessa announced, “We released Mr. Smith today. Repeat after me, Vanni, ‘We must not pay $4M to a pitcher that lost 14 games’”. As she pulled the heavy door to a gentle close, she marveled at its ability to deaden even shrill sounds.

[Sandgnats]

Glad to see women entering PEBA. Rumors are that CL might have a female owner soon...

[ScottH]

Enjoyed reading this one. Get 'em next year!!