Billy Beane Interview

Athletics Nation posted part I of a great Billy Beane interview:

Beane:  I don’t think people come out on a regular basis to see individuals.  I think people come out to see a team.  We have no other way to operate. We could operate where we have a whole generation of players well beyond its prime but there would be even less people here.  For every one we lose because we don’t keep their favorite player, we’re going to keep two if we win.  And the reverse is true.  The thing that’s always been interesting about being here is that there is always excuses about why people don’t come out.  The fact is that we don’t draw.  The blame has always been on this thing or that thing.  There is always something new.  I mean we went to the ALCS in 2006 and in an era when baseball attendance was shooting up 26 percent or something, we wound up drawing less people the next year.  Explain that.  Over the last decade, we’ve put a pretty good product on the field.  We have a group (of fans) here that’s been here since the first year we came here.  The fact remains is that we’re still well behind the curve when it comes to attendance and some of it is probably the organization’s fault.  Not everyone is completely blameless.  You can understand that when you’re having that kind of turnover you’re going to lose some of that loyalty.  Again the flip side for us, given everything that we have to balance, is that we’re going to maintain that loyalty with the hardcore people by putting the best product we can on the field and having to err on the side of making good business decisions instead of making emotional decisions.  Believe me, my life would be a lot easier if we could just stamp a team down for the next six or seven seasons. 

He’s still way ahead of most GMs in how he directs the franchise, always looking into the future. He probably didn’t expect the A’s current success, so that must be a nice bonus.