Diamondbacks, Cardinals Building Culture Of Success Without The Pesky Success Part

I'd like to thank you all for coming out today for this press conference. It has been a productive first six months here at SBN Arizona, to be sure. We've done very well in some areas and shown potential in others. The next six months promise to deliver even more on the promise of giving you local voices in Arizona sports.

Despite rumors circulating around sites such as Bleacher Report and Where That Homeless Guy Lives Who Sings Show Tunes Between Screeds Against the Martians, we will not begin those next six months by hiring Matt Leinart as a columnist. We appreciate what he almost did for the Arizona Cardinals organization, but he does not fit the culture we're trying to build here at SBN Arizona. We cannot succeed as a local sports website if we do not build that culture of success.

Indeed, you'll see changes at SBN Arizona over the next few months to support the building of the new culture of success. Without it, we will be held back from our full potential.

For example, you can look forward to regional sports editor Seth Pollack being replaced by Geoff Blum. We don't actually know if he can edit any more than he can wear a Major League Baseball uniform smartly, but his clubhouse presence is tremendous. Look for Geoff to contribute as soon as he works out the SBN Arizona newsroom fine system.

Also, Lolly Konecky, Justin Burning, and Cory Williams are out as editors and writers. Each of them has shown skill in both areas, but Lolly's attitude has been suspect from day one with her editing and her critical eye and her speaking out against misspellings. Cory's got one foot out the door now that he's heard the homeless guy might be bought out by Bleacher Report, opening that position. And Justin has that beard that just screams disrespect, mostly because he has a living beard. That's just creepy and creepy doesn't build team unity.

It's like Mark Reynolds. Sure, he hit a ton of home runs and was an overall productive player. But strikeouts? We don't need no stinkin' strikeouts on this team. Junk him at any cost, no matter the cost to the organization. We have standards now.

We've replaced all three with Claude Lévi-Strauss, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, and James Clifford. These are cultural anthropologists of the first order, able to construct a culture of success on their lunch hours. Unfortunately, none of them are skilled in sportswriting and some of them are dead. Still, we can't build a culture of success without them. Bye, old editors!

Kevin Ray and Bryan Gibberman? These are professionals, you say. Men who have jobs that revolve around sports. Surely they can contribute to a culture of success. Probably (though don't call me Shirley this week out of respect for the deceased). However, they aren't Geoff Blum's guys originally; they came in under the Pollack reign. Geoff's model of success looks good in stirrups. Therefore, Kevin stays and Bryan's out. Congratulations, Kevin!

Jose Romero? Too much like an actual reporter. Jess and Jordan? Too many Js. Randy and Shaun? Interns don't bring experience.

Scott Howard? Scott Howard?!? Please.

All of them will be replaced by a DVD playing "Miracle" on a loop. That movie is totally about success. Geoff and Kevin will watch it enough to feel successful. The cultural anthropologists will play Civ II on a computer in a corner of the office until they set up the perfect Petri dish for success.

Of course, Kevin won't be able to write enough to keep the site full of content. Still, we know people don't read SBN Arizona for the news or insights they can't get anywhere else. No, they read SBN Arizona because they can feel the culture of success in each HTML tag. Now those tags will be supersaturated with success.

Some of you might feel these moves are like cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. That's not true at all. We're saving that for spring training. After all, a culture of success isn't built overnight.