Offseason, pre-winter meeting, owner’s office…

“You need to try harder now.” said the owner Wendell Hart, leaning comfortably in his office chair. “The jig is up, we cannot continue to not try to win. That is not to say I don’t appreciate what you had done so in the past few years, but it’s time to change our approach. Fans had slowed down, they are not coming to see our team play pathetic baseball as much as they were in the past few years.”

“So, what you are saying is that…now it’s the time to try and win some ball games?” Andy asked, a hint of happiness on his commonly stern face. No one likes losing forever, certainly not a manager that had some success in his former ball club Hartford Harpoon.

“Great word.” The owner pointed a finger at the manager, “‘Try’ is such a great word to use here. You know me, I don’t care if we win or lose, what matters is that they keep giving me money. Let me tell you a secret to any business — pretend. It’s all about presenting yourself in a manner that people would like. In our case, fans love a team that want to win. It doesn’t matter if we cannot win in the end, all that matters is them believing that we are trying to achieve that goal. Got it?”

“What about the budget? Keeping them low has been your biggest request in the past few years, Mr. Hart. Can I spend them to bring good players in? Can’t really pretend if we don’t even have good players.”

“Usually, I would say ‘no’. But we had been well in the green for the past couple seasons, we can afford some spending — but stick with value players. We don’t need no overpriced so-called ‘star players’ in our squad.” Wendell stood up and turned to look outside the window, hands behind his back in a rather relaxed manner as he continued.

“We aren’t desperate enough to need them to sell tickets…for now. Make sure we keep our fans happy so we don’t have to do that. Get their asses into the seats right now so we don’t sink further. There’s no place for expensive star players in this squad. They are expensive and unloyal — simply not for me! I hope you don’t buy into their bullshit, Andy. They pretend too, just like us. They will say they love playing for the fans, for a team, or to win a championship, but they will bail to somewhere they can earn the most money at the end of the day. And that’s the reality of this cockamamy world. Fans, they are so much simple, and we want to keep them that way. So give them hope, right now, and keep them coming.”

It is by now that he turned back to look at Andy. “Do I make myself clear, Andy?” The manager nodded but did not say anything in reply.

“Good, now go and do what you have to do. Have fun in this offseason, we have been boring for a while.”