How Damage Control Works
My Giants Show The Way
TODAY'S RAMBLINGS
2 Minute Read
Happy Wednesday and my beloved SF Giants are off to a great start. They also recently fixed a pretty big self-inflicted wound.
I share it today as evidence that even catastrophically bad decisions can be reversed. Like, and to use a random example, if you were the President and had just unilaterally wrecked the world economy and global trade for years, for no valid reason.
Because not too long ago, the Giants made an equally moronic move. They desecrated the memories of their most loyal fans for no valid reason, and while it’s not quite the same as desecrating one’s country, it was bad.
Heck, they even made it worse before permanently fixing the problem.
Some background and the happy ending.
As many know, Willie McCovey is a San Francisco and baseball legend. When the Giants opened their Diamond Certified stadium in 2000, they named the body of water beyond the right field wall as “McCovey Cove,” and as they are wont to do with their legends, even commissioned a ginormous statue of Stretch, overlooking his Cove. It was installed in 2003.
Back then, they sold commemorative bricks to the public, which you could have inscribed with a brief message. Some listed their family members’ names, others mentioned a special memory at a game with a treasured grandparent or uncle. These bricks were then installed around the McCovey statue, and everything was great. The bricks would be a loving and permanent tribute by fans to their loved ones, surrounding the statue of one of the most revered players in franchise history.
Perfect.
Until the entire area was dug up to make way for a massive office and commercial development, all on land owned by the Giants. Including the land on which the original bricks and McCovey’s statue were.
Because during construction, the bricks were not preserved. They were destroyed.
This itself is among the most tone-deaf and unthinking actions of which I’ve heard. Who in the world would ever have been in a tractor and thought, “Yep, this makes sense. I should definitely just scrape all of this shit up and dump it in the grinder.”
But the Giants initially made it worse. Much worse.
Because after the initial and predictable outcry by basically everyone in town, some genius in the Giants’ org came up with the idea of a “digital kiosk” near McCovey cove, that “would display onscreen the messages from the original tiles.”
People lost their minds, justifiably. Mind you, the original space was cleared and reconfigured to make way for things - offices, commercial space, condos, etc. - that will make the Giants ownership a LOT of money. It was pretty disgusting.
But alas, somebody got the message that this entire mess needed fixing, and fixing right. I was thrilled with the coverage I saw recently in our fine local paper, The San Francisco Chronicle.
The Giants did the right thing and everyone is happy. They recreated the tiles and installed them in their rightful place, surrounding the Willie McCovey statue which has also been returned, after being stored during construction. At least some jackass didn’t toss that, too.
So it turns out one can make completely mindless mistakes and repair the damage?
Can someone then please send this to Dear Leader?
FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES
Anonymous checked in. Despite writing from the Mediterranean and going from Greece to Italy, she apparently feels the same anger I expressed on Monday.
I think a lot of people, including me, are pissed off these days!
Thank you for reading this newsletter.
KLUF
Let us return now to happier, more simple times, 1979 to be exact. A time when Republicans wanted free and open markets and Trump was rightly just a laughing stock around Manhattan. This was released in 1979.
You know, kinda before . . . everything.
And does anyone even still dream of Breakfast in America any longer?