The Italian Kid Did It!

[That Aud Smell]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Tom's account is more plausible than, as Swamp points out, a contract sitting on the owner's desk as he snores, the feather going up and coming back down on his nose time and again. Or however the old cartoon went.

Yeah Chris and his agent were really antsy to get that deal done.

The visual is funny.

Your desire to prop up Golisano’s version of events is baffling.

[Stoner]

3 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

The visual is funny.

Your desire to prop up Golisano’s version of events is baffling.

Why? I don't get it. Then again I don't get most of your reactions.

He wrote it in a book. Why have a desire to shoot down his version?

In the end, who cares? It's July 2022. 

[Contempt]

If you buy and read this book more power to you. I'm imagining a setup where you buy the book then have to pay a dollar to turn each page and the book turns to dust when you finish it.

[That Aud Smell]

8 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Why? I don't get it.

Because you’re generally an iconoclast around here, who, among other things, consistently unloads on the bullsh-t and hypocrisy of the team’s current owners. Such BS and hypocrisy being largely part and parcel of belonging to the billionaire class. And yet with Tom G … . Like I said: Baffling.

8 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

He wrote it in a book.

[That Aud Smell]

8 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

Why have a desire to shoot down his version?

Desire is beside the point. Why not just be analytical and make reasonable inferences from facts or putative facts?

[That Aud Smell]

8 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

In the end, who cares? It's July 2022. 

Lots of people care. This is our team. This is its history. 7/1/07 is a day that lives in infamy. This will always be discussed and debated among those who remember and care. 

I just can’t sort out your “nothing to see here, folks — move along — better yet, stop caring” take on this. 

[nfreeman]

^^^^ especially when @PASabreFan ‘s well-documented fear and loathing of the wealthy manifested so early and often during the OSP era.  

[That Aud Smell]

23 minutes ago, nfreeman said:

^^^^ especially when @PASabreFan ‘s well-documented fear and loathing of the wealthy manifested so early and often during the OSP era.  

I’ve read PA’s suggestions that the franchise should jettison a long-tenured equipment manager and a longtime anthem singer — in the interest of purging bad juju (?) — maybe PA sees our continued discussion of 7/1/07 as being bad karma (?).

[nfreeman]

30 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

I’ve read PA’s suggestions that the franchise should jettison a long-tenured equipment manager and a longtime anthem singer — in the interest of purging bad juju (?) — maybe PA sees our continued discussion of 7/1/07 as being bad karma (?).

Could be.

Or maybe he's just in one of his moods.

I'll bring him that lime jello that he likes in a little while.

[Stoner]

5 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

Desire is beside the point. Why not just be analytical and make reasonable inferences from facts or putative facts?

Tom's version makes more sense. What facts do we have? Has anyone else gone on record about what happened?

Drury didn't sign early in the season. He was already having a good season and the team was white hot. By the playoff round with NYR, Chris was openly talking about being a Rangers fan growing up and the specialness of playing at MSG.

That's enough for me

Besides, Tom has grown on me as an owner the way Nixon grew on a lot of people after he left office. He's old. Just leave him be.

I don't mess with Terry anymore. I sure as hell am not wasting any mental energy on Golisano.

 

Also when did someone creep up on Drury while he was buying organic lettuce at Wegman's? There's your answer.

[That Aud Smell]

59 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Has anyone else gone on record about what happened?

Larry Quinn, possibly?

[That Aud Smell]

2 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

Larry Quinn, possibly?

Also - who else is likely to go on record about this? Sourced  information is in play, imo.

Edited July 13, 2022 by That Aud Smell

[ubkev]

On 7/12/2022 at 12:10 PM, inkman said:

Golisano during meetings 

You're a cantaloupe!

[Stoner]

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2007/08/06/story3.html

LQ: Well, I guess we didn't get the deal done, so ultimately we do bear responsibility for that. I think we collectively do; if people want to say I do, that's OK with me. But reality is that it's a two-way street. The player bears responsibility too. Our two captains didn't come back to Buffalo, and that's a choice they made. I'm not going to characterize it one way or another, but it's not just management deciding in that situation. The player decides, too.

Hindsight is always so clear, but in the fall - in reference to Chris and Danny - we were $90,000 away from the cap. It seems foolish now. A lot of people thought the cap wasn't going up. It went up to $50 million. What is that? That's $180 million that came into the system that was not there. And there were never "hometown discounts" offered. That whole notion is a foolish notion.

Players, for the most part, understandably will sign for what they believe the market is. Did the market move up since the fall? Yeah, it moved up a lot. But the market in the fall was $5 million - a lot - for a player ... That was the market then. It wasn't a discount. In June, does that number in the fall look like a discount? Yeah. But it wasn't when it was offered.

BF: At the outset of this interview, you said there was a major piece of misinformation about Drury?

LQ: The front-page News story that Chris Drury had agreed (to terms) with us and we never sent a contract. That just simply didn't happen.

BF: The agreement didn't happen?

LQ: No. Chris made an offer to us, which we didn't accept, and he knows we didn't accept it. But the notion that we came to terms and didn't bother to send him a contract and therefore he became upset with us is just complete fiction.

I thought it was very misleading to our fans. The problem with those kind of things, normally you don't care, is they become part of the written Internet record. I guarantee you that for years now, people will do searches and they'll write a story about how Chris Drury left Buffalo because a secretary signed his contract and never sent it to him, which is complete, utter fiction.

[Weave]

The title of the book, “The Italian Kid Did It”.  Like OSP had some Italian baggage to overcome.  LOL

[That Aud Smell]

14 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2007/08/06/story3.html

LQ: Well, I guess we didn't get the deal done, so ultimately we do bear responsibility for that. I think we collectively do; if people want to say I do, that's OK with me. But reality is that it's a two-way street. The player bears responsibility too.

So Golisano’s bag man and water carrier is also on record.

No one’s on record with the story that there was a deal in principle in the fall, that Golisano balked because of the price, and then the price went up because Drury lit it up and there was an infusion of money.

In terms of known facts: Do we accept as fact that Golisano demanded the team operate in the black, that he was extremely cost conscious, and that he was at times a cruel as1hole to his direct reports? (The latter assertion is my inference from his own story about an unaccounted for bonus (250K?!) and a 45 minute silent treatment in his warm sunroom that didn’t end until Darcy said he’d pay the bonus back to his boss. (Btw - query whether that’d even be legal - to have an employee pay the company back for an error/omission in the course of their duties. The analysis might be peculiar when it’s a key employee with a detailed contract. Whatever. What an as1hole that guy is.)

[Stoner]

Put the fruit in before the Jello sets.

In the black? No, not according to Tom, anyway.

[MattPie]

4 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/buffalo/stories/2007/08/06/story3.html

LQ: Well, I guess we didn't get the deal done, so ultimately we do bear responsibility for that. I think we collectively do; if people want to say I do, that's OK with me. But reality is that it's a two-way street. The player bears responsibility too. Our two captains didn't come back to Buffalo, and that's a choice they made. I'm not going to characterize it one way or another, but it's not just management deciding in that situation. The player decides, too.

Are there any records from people that don't have a vested interested in spinning the story? Just looking for something impartial.

[That Aud Smell]

2 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

In the black? No, not according to Tom, anyway.

“According to Tom” = expressed by Tom in a spitting vein popping rage?

[Stoner]

14 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

“According to Tom” = expressed by Tom in a spitting vein popping rage?

No. Told rather calmly to a pesky Harrington at the former owner's farewell presser. "My only directive to Darcy (or Larry and Darcy) was to break even."

[Taro T]

43 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

No. Told rather calmly to a pesky Harrington at the former owner's farewell presser. "My only directive to Darcy (or Larry and Darcy) was to break even."

You're contradicting @That Aud Smell because he asked whether it was true Golisano gave a mandate not to lose money and used the phrase "operate in the black" when asking about it and you are using the quote above to do so.

Newsflash, "not losing money," "operating in the black," & "breaking even" are all ways of saying the exact same thing.  It's sophistry to claim otherwise.

 

[That Aud Smell]

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

No. Told rather calmly to a pesky Harrington at the former owner's farewell presser. "My only directive to Darcy (or Larry and Darcy) was to break even."

I’m going inferential again. We’ve got his story about what a monstrous d1ck ge was to senior management. I’m imagining how he likely spoke about that matter to those who reported to him.

[That Aud Smell]

21 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

Do we accept as fact that Golisano demanded the team operate in the black

19 hours ago, PASabreFan said:

In the black? No, not according to Tom, anyway.

16 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

“According to Tom” = expressed by Tom in a spitting vein popping rage?

1 hour ago, PASabreFan said:

No. Told rather calmly to a pesky Harrington at the former owner's farewell presser. "My only directive to Darcy (or Larry and Darcy) was to break even."

I’m just confused now.

[Stoner]

3 hours ago, That Aud Smell said:

I’m just confused now.

Did you not assert as fact that Tom demanded that the team operate in the black (turn a profit)?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in the black#:~:text=Definition of in the black,is finally in the black.

According to Tom he wasn't interested in turning a profit.

[That Aud Smell]

36 minutes ago, PASabreFan said:

Did you not assert as fact that Tom demanded that the team operate in the black (turn a profit)?

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/in the black#:~:text=Definition of in the black,is finally in the black.

According to Tom he wasn't interested in turning a profit.

Ah, quite so. I was imprecise. So, maybe .01 in the black?

What I really meant was “thou shalt lose no money” — the sort of edict pursuant to which an as*hole boss keeps his reports in an uncomfortably warm 45 minute silence until someone offers to pay him for the unanticipated $250K bonus incurred during a Cup run season.

Also, I think you’re being pedantic and obtuse.