Frank White... GONE *Denny Matthews Voice*

[alnorth]

Obviously I believe non-renewing his contract was the correct move, but the Royals handled this poorly. The Royals knew or should have known a couple things. First, Frank White is a very proud man, perhaps far too proud for his own good, where despite all the organization has done for him, he's constantly seeing himself as being disrespected. Second, it should have been clear to the Royals after just a few weeks of filling in for Split that this was not going to work.

Back then, Frank was still working PR and not yet been cemented in as the color analyst, and what the Royals should have done was sit him down, tell him straight-up that this was temporary and that if Split did not come back, they were moving in a new direction, but they'd love to have him working PR. If he reacted poorly to that, well he'd just started the TV gig and at least you were up-front with him. Instead, the Royals said nothing about his broadcasting, allowing him over a couple seasons to think he was doing well, and earlier this year due to his not having time for PR anymore, they slashed his PR pay by 2/3.

That move may have been justified, and it may have been logical, but given his pride, it was a very stupid move. All it did was greatly piss him off to the point where he told the Royals to shove their PR job, and apparently (I wasn't aware of this) over the last season it was a poorly-kept secret in baseball that off the air and off the record, he'd blast the Royals management to anyone and everyone from any organization or news outlet who wanted to talk to him about it. If true, I'm not sure why he'd think the Royals would put up with that.

From another board, this neatly sums up the disrespect to Frank White and what he's "owed".

The organization has:

1) Placed him in their HOF.
2) Retired his number.
3) Placed his number in a very prominent place in the park as a CONSTANT reminder of him.
4) Placed a statue in his honor at the stadium.
5) Employed him for 20 years as a player.
6) Employed him for nearly 20 more years as a: coach, manager, public relations guy & TV commentator.

I don't think the organization "owes" any more to him. Very few folks have a "job for life".