Riding Off Into Arnim Whisler's Delusional Sunset
You've got the talkin' down, just not the listening
This week we have more public posturing with zero real action from Major League Baseball franchise owners as their lockout endures and a National Women’s Soccer League franchise owner who believes he can gaslight the entire world. For athletic and other workers of the Chicago Red Stars, the bloviation from controlling owner Arnim Whisler might be worse than MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred’s ridiculous utterances are for workers in that league.
It’s reminiscent of the lyrics of a popular Sara Bareilles song, “King of Anything.”
Manfred says running an MLB team is risky as owners submit another worthless “proposal”
Manfred gave a press conference and it was the kind of easily dismissed drivel that everyone has come to know Manfred for. Because no one close enough to Manfred will call him on anything and he has long since sold off every shred of his own concern about integrity to MLB’s owners, he will continue to go right on spewing laughable falsehoods at every opportunity.
His latest whopper was stating that owning an MLB franchise is riskier than playing the stock market. The data to refute that ridiculous statement is pretty easy to gather but I’m not going to dignify his remark by doing even that little bit of work. Suffice to say, Manfred doesn’t care if you know what he said is complete BS. Either that or he thinks you’re a moron of the lowest quality.
The owners followed up that performance by taking time out of their swamped schedules on Saturday to spend all of one hour – making it the seventh hour in nearly 50 days since they started their lockout – they’ve spent face-to-face with MLB Players Association representatives in negotiations. They also made it the seventh wasted hour, as their newest proposal again is a complete non-starter and they know it.
According to James Wagner of the New York Times, here are the latest ways in which the owners made a pathetic attempt at “coming players’ way.”
Raise minimum salaries a smidge more
Increase the bonus pool for non-arbitration-eligible players by $5 million
Raise the luxury tax thresholds by $2 million per year in each of the final three years of the contract
The owners made no concessions at all on pertinent matters like the constructs of the revenue sharing system among clubs and the progression structure for salary arbitration/free agency. Additionally, it is still hanging onto its idea of doubling the tax rates for the luxury tax.
So, why is this proposal still a complete waste of time? It makes no real concessions and demands players give up their only leverage; agree to an expanded postseason. As an example, an increase in the penalties for violating the luxury tax makes the thresholds irrelevant. In fact, such an increase in the tax rate would only further entrench the luxury tax thresholds as a de facto salary cap as clubs already treat it with the tax rates at their current levels.
There are other reasons, like the owners’ new proposal for the non-arbitration bonus pool still being $85 million less than the players are proposing. But that’s the best example of how the owners aren’t negotiating in good faith. Everything they are doing right now is merely a public relations ploy so that when their lockout results in a delayed/shortened season, they can claim they’ve made offers.
Just Whisler-ing Dixie with the idea of accountability
Last week, 80 days after the first Washington Post report about former Red Stars former general manager/head coach Rory Dames’ pattern of abuse and manipulation plus a day after a second story from Molly Hensley-Clancy on more of the same from Dames, Whisler came out of hiding with an open letter.
The following day, he held a series of one-on-one sessions with select members of the media lasting up to 15 minutes each. Whisler also allegedly asked to see the questions those few reporters would have for him prior. So far, Annie Costabile of the Chicago Sun-Times and Jeremy Mikula of the Chicago Tribune have published reports from their sessions with Whisler.
In the letter and in the interviews, Whisler tries to make himself sound so innocent, full of good intent and swears he knows best. It isn’t hard to see that Whisler expects supporters and workers to jump on board with him and ride off into his delusional sunset.
Whisler begins the letter by calling upon his work to create and maintain the club as if that somehow cancels out years of employing and protecting an abuser. He then goes on in the letter to say “I will continue to be accountable for what happens in the club” despite the fact that he hadn’t given a media availability or issued a statement in nearly three months. Additionally, he follows that phrase with an immediate contradictory clause.
It’s standard public relations practice that anytime a statement of accountability is followed with the word “but,” that statement isn’t actually one of accountability. Add that to the fact that he sought to control every aspect of the media availability on Friday and Whisler’s emphasis is on anything but accountability. It’s on doing whatever the bare minimum performative dance he has to go through the motions of in order to get the heat off his back so he can pretend he’s saving the day again.
What’s with Whisler’s apprehension about actual accountability? Hensley-Clancy’s response to his spin in Mikula’s article sheds some insight.
According to Mikula, Whisler said the timing of Dames’ 11th-hour resignation had nothing to do with the fact that Hensley-Clancy’s first story about Dames was due to publish mere hours later. Whisler also maintained that he “didn’t have any reason to believe that there was a safety issue in our environment.”
That contradicts what Hensley-Clancy shared after Mikuka published, however.
Hensley-Clancy hasn’t shared exactly what she told Whisler about her report or exactly when she filled the club in. However, given the timing of Dames’ resignation and the story, there’s no way that Whisler had zero inkling that there was a safety issue prior to Dames resigning unless Hensley-Clancy is simply fabricating the information in this Tweet.
In the interview, Whisler flat out says, “we didn’t have knowledge of incidents or complaints. We weren’t hiding. We actually were believing that we were some of the good people.”
Again, if Hensley-Clancy informed Whisler and the club of the contents of her story days before publishing it, that is an outright lie. The contents of the story were all about complaints and incidents.
Amidst these falsehoods and likely others, Whisler expects supporters and workers to hold his crown. The truth is, though, that no one died and made Whisler king of anything. For workers and supporters, it’s our turn to decide. We hate to break it to him, but we’re not drowning. There is no one here to save.