DENVER — When Brandon CrawfordBuster Posey, as he was known, had taken over his job, and he has been his boss for a while. Giants shortstop took out his phone and fired off a text to the club’s newest principal partner and executive board member.
Just so you know what you’re getting into, I have heard that owning a baseball team isn’t a moneymaking business.
Crawford is a master at digital sarcasm. He couldn’t resist an oblique reference to Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball Commissioner during the frostiest days of the industry’s 99-day lockout earlier this year: when major-league owners cash out, said Manfred, “the return on those investments is below what you get in the stock market.”
“So I did warn him on that,” said Crawford, smiling.
Posey loved to stitch Crawford, while they spent more than a decade together in Giants teammate status. That relationship apparently won’t change now that Posey is trading a seat on the dugout bench for a supple, leather boardroom chair.
But it was all in good fun then and it’s all in good fun now. The reaction within the Giants clubhouse to the Posey news was abundant enthusiasm sprinkled with hope that their perspectives will be better understood by the buttoned-down partners who drive the franchise’s finances, influence the temperament of future labor negotiations and have approval or veto authority over all major roster decisions.
