MLB: Hicks, Oates, and a bad stench on the ranch

Johnny Oates, good guy that he is, resigned as manager of the Texas Rangers on Friday. How nice of him.

He didn't want the organization to look bad by officially firing him from his post. Never mind the fact that the ax was going to fall, just one month into the season, unless Oates gave the organization some cover. Oates did something very graceful, unlike those who call the shots and pay the big bucks in the Texas Ranger organization.

When Tom Hicks, a good ole boy suckered by Scott Boras, threw down the money and landed his Texas-size catch, Alex Rodriguez, the lack of baseball foresight (not to mention human conscientiousness) was staggeringly clear: on a team without pitching, Hicks completely destroyed his franchise's long-term salary structure to get a player who, regardless of his of his other talents, can't throw a 96-mph backdoor slider on the outside corner, for seven innings or even in the ninth inning alone.

So, one month into the season, with the Rangers' staff ERA a predictably whopping 6.72, guess what happens? Hicks fumes like every arrogant and impatient novice baseball owner before him; General Manager Doug Melvin feels the heat; and Oates, an accomplished manager whose only fault was that he couldn't beat the Yankees in October (or, perhaps, avoid drawing the Pinstripes in the first round of the playoffs), gets the ax.

Friends, we know that baseball people, from Bud Selig on down, are clueless, stupid and destructive of the great game that still endures despite them. However, in this "A-Fraud"-fueled situation, we have a particularly glaring example of shoddy and disgusting treatment of a human being in a system (or culture--take your pick) that treats people as pieces of meat and means to a profit--nothing more, nothing less.

To be sure, Oates is not a third-world sweatshop worker or a struggling small business owner. Yet, he's been subjected to the same kind of cutthroat competition and executive arrogance that so permeate the culture of America, particularly its suites and boardrooms.

The Texas Rangers, in a particular way, have just joined the ranks of multi-national corporations. How fitting that George W. Bush once owned them.

If you're in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area, or if you ever want to see Alex Rodriguez and the Rangers play in the ballpark near you, send a message by not attending. Montreal-level baseball crowds would let Tom Hicks know where he can stick his big-boy, big-bucks braggadocio. It might also give him something he and all too many baseball people lack: a conscience.