The man behind the Mark McGwire media plan has lost a couple of high-profile gigs.
As many St. Louis Cardinals watchers know, the club engaged the communications firm led by former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer to guide them through Mark McGwire’s re-entry into baseball.
The message delivered did not resonate well as McGwire insisted his use of performance enhancing substances was for recovery reasons only and did not assist his impressive home run totals – his primary claim to fame as a player.
As the architect of the Big Mac rollout, Fleischer took a fair amount of heat. Now, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports the National League champion Phillies have not retained Fleischer’s services. Used as a speaker last spring for media training for players, he was replaced by a competitor for 2010. Anonymous organization members did not offer positive comments on Fleischer’s effectiveness.
The paper also notes that Major League Baseball no longer employs Fleischer Sports Communications, having used them from 2005-09 when steroids was a more prominent issue for MLB. The source referenced noted the parting of ways was amicable.
Fleischer’s McGwire strategy began with a short general release followed by a hour-long interview with Bob Costas and a series of individual calls to key media members. McGwire’s time at the Winter Warm-Up fan event was the best and worst of times, as he was greeted with a long ovation from fans, but a poorly-arranged meeting with the general media flopped badly.
From the process perspective, McGwire recovered somewhat by meeting with the media several times once he arrived in Florida, though the major concern with his message will apparently remain.
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Fleischer was Dubya’s PR guy from 2001-03. He must have quit and looked to cash in on his high public profile.
When the steroids thing came up among Republican congress people during 2005, it made sense for MLB to hire a Republican PR guy. But the Congress changed hands after Nov 2006, so then Fleischer became not quite as useful for his Republican connections. Why the Cards used Fleischer in 2010 may be unclear. Maybe he and Daddy DeWitt go back.
One reason to hire a PR firm is to have a fall guy who can be fired. DeWitt can’t easily fire himself.
The PED issue served political purposes in 2005. The US was involved in a no-win war in Iraq, so politicians looked around elsewhere for a symbolic “values” issue to deplore and on which to campaign, so as to win your votes.
Sports stars are high publicity figures. As such, they provide free publicity for politicians. Who would not want to restore the competitive integrity of the game, defend motherhood, apple pie? It helps draw attention and win re-elections, and distract the minds of citizens from real problems that involve uncertainties and unpleasant, lose/lose choices.
Given the political appeal of uncovering a steroid “problem” in MLB that was, horrors, even extending into classrooms and corrupting innocent youths, it is unsurprising Fleisher got recruited in 2005 and then again in 2010.
Recently the media hype has spread to Toronto, catching A-Rod, Huston Street, and others from baseball. Baseballers must have found a friendly doc up in Canada. The bad news is he helped Tiger Woods, so now they are linked to the infamous Tiger.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/galea-story-a-feeding-frenzy/article1496200/
Jolly good fun.
The New York Post reports today that Woods has hired Fleischer. The rumor that Woods plans to assert that all the extra sex did not help his golf game has still not been confirmed.
Fleischer, Woods, HGH, A-Rod, it goes on and on, and will only continue to do so, even if the names of players or molecules change.
This is why it should be a relief for Brian to talk with Luhnow about baseball and about real guys who are not celebrities, as yet.
Work finished………….now some distancing…………..corporate America signs in on the same day.
Its old news if you read these threads with any understanding.
Its key to have somebody to blame. The lawyers bungled the hearing. Ari fumbled the rollout .
You aren’t even close BB. The Jockeying by MLB owners for position and influence on the selection of the new Commissioner has already begun. That’s all. The steroid issue ended with the departure of the Bush administration. Until the unexpected bonus provided by BD with MM.
Its over now. The Phils are well known for not being in the Selig camp. BD and others will attempt to get W the commissioners job. If the next national election swings to the right….they just might succeed. There will be a battle.
Your blog is provocative Brian. I like it.
Thanks, WC, but don’t make it too provocative, please. We don’t want you running out of places to post…
Pro sports generally do not bring in outsider celebs like ex-Presidents to be Commissioners, at least anymore. Few Commissioners could have had less glitz than Selig, an auto dealer.
Also Dubya was a divisive figure and it would not be good for business to make him Commissioner and alienate half of the fans.
Its an interesting idea, Westie, about Commissioner Dubya. But it may be an unwarranted fear you are having out there in liberalville.
How about MLB Commissioner Dick Cheney? Wow, not a good idea.
If you complain about ticketprices, Commissioner Dick will waterboard you.
I didn’t mean to suggest you site was overly provocative. It was this article to be more specific.
A sports reporter in Philly notices the absents of Ari at a media seminar, asks a few questions and like magic, a story…………. Not a MLB press release, Not a Phillies press release, but a tabloid press release……………………… You’ve heard the story on this right here. Ari did his job perfectly.
How many actually believe that its Tiger Woods who in hiring Ari, and not whats left of his sponsors and the PGA? Re entering for the masters?
Can’t believe some haven’t heard of W’s interest in being comish.
http://www.slate.com/id/2180254/
Here is one blog entry about Dubya Bush as MLB commissioner. The idea must have been written about in leftist fantasies.
He seems more suited to cermonial first pitches and wooping it up out in the bleachers. The owners will bob and weave for a while and hopefully do something sensible like hire Mark Lamping for the job.
I think that, given the goals of the McGwire roll out, that the PR campaign was quite successful. To my mind, the goal was to get the press corps off of his back come the baseball season. There will be a few questions by local media at the start of the season, but by and large, the story is over. That was the goal wasn’t it? ESPN might do a story again once the regular season starts, but the “media circus” just isn’t going to be there. That was the goal, and I think it was accomplished. Whether or not Ari Fleischer has lost contracts is probably irrelevant. Perhaps people in baseball see it differently. Perhaps they thought the goal was something different, namely McGwire getting into the Hall. However, from the Cardinals’ perspective, they want to have a good hitting coach that doesn’t distract the team. To my mind, as long as McGwire turns out to be a good hitting coach, then their goals have been reached.
Chris, I suspect there were many different motivations, not all necessarily aligned. You have MLB, the Cardinals, the manager, McGwire himself.
Brian,
I agree that the motivations of the various interested parties are not necessarily in alignment. La Russa, in addition to wanting an effective hitting coach who is not a distraction, which at the very least should be his primary concern, certainly would like some redemption for McGwire. La Russa, as the manager of the bash brothers, will always be under a cloud as someone who either had no clue what was going on or tacitly endorsed it, or worse. It’s hard to divine McGwire’s motivations. Unless he has completely blown his money, he should be financially stable and set for life. So, I doubt a monetary motivation. I am sure that he would love to be in the Hall, but it is clear (at least to me) that the current BBWA wants nothing to do with anybody with a taint. I think this will be clear when Bonds and Clemens come up for voting. I would be surprised if either get over 50% on their first ballot. As long as they are refused entry, McGwire has no chance. MLB just wants to put steroids behind them. At the end of the day, they are in the business of making money. As long as people buy tickets, buy jerseys, buy the MLB package, etc., I don’t think they really care. Selig styles himself as the guardian of the game, but his main job is to see to it that the owners make money. The problem with steroids only became a real issue when it looked like it would keep people away from the game, or worse, threaten their anti-trust exemption, which would directly effect their bottom line.
However, all that being said, I still think that for the Cardinals (who will still sell plenty of tickets) and hopefully get a good hitting coach who won’t be a distraction, the rollout when just fine. The storm has passed and now its time to win some games. There will be a renewed interest near the start of the season, but nothing as crazy as the initial rollout, and there will be further talk when the Cards make the post-season, and if they make the World Series, you can bet that will be part of the story line, but at that point, it will be spun as redemption, unless the Cards face New York, but they have plenty of steroid allegations of their own. The real danger is if the Cards start the season worse than expected or if Pujols and or Holliday hit much worse than expected. I think that McGwire has the right approach and certainly embraces technology more than McRae did, so the proof, as they say, will be in the pudding.
Very nice Chris…………… civilized conjecture.
“Fleischer visited Bright House Field last March for a media-training session with the Phils but was not asked to return this year. Instead, the team will hear from media consultant Lisa Levine today.
Phillies officials did not wish to comment on the change, but several players remembered Fleischer’s presentation as brief and underwhelming.”
This article says nothing. Was Ari’s agreement with MLB part of why he was doing media seminars?
The fact that it ended…..a yr ago……..just might have be an issue. No where does it say that he was hired by the Philles of fired by the Philles, just that he did not return as a speaker on media day.
Don’t get me wrong here………………Fleischer is an a—-le. He was hired by the Cardinals to do a job. He did. The way I see it, he accomplished exactly what he was asked to do…(by Bud and BD)…… and that was to end the debate about the assent of Steroid era players to the hall. It wasn’t intended to be cleaner than it was. Enough blood and tears were shed to drown Roger and Barry.
The larger implications still have to do with collusion law suit vulnerability. Bonds was the poster boy for both sides………. PU because he was so obviously mistreated and harassed……..MLB because he was obviously so unworthy…………….. That has now pretty much been resolved. Mark will drag the cross………rightfully so……….and all the others can either join in, or take their chances. The Union isn’t going to uses Bonds now in any collusion complaints. That’s a looser……………but they are looking for a candidate, of that you can be assured.