The listless Stros made the forgetable Corey Lidle look like Tom Seaver today as the Reds mowed down the Stros for third straight day, 7-0. The Stros have now lost four straight and their boat is clearly taking on some serious H2O.
Tim Redding will try to salvage a game in Cincy for the Stros in Monday night’s game. Roy O opens the Cub series on Tuesday night at the Juice Box.
William J. Holstein is the editor of Chief Executive magazine and, in this NY Times piece, interviews Donald J. Gogel, the chief executive of Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, one of the oldest private-equity firms in the world. The entire interview is interesting, but particularly insightful are the following observations that Mr. Gogel makes regarding the disincentives of investing in public companies:
Q. This suggests that a lot is happening away from public scrutiny because these companies do not have to worry about regulatory compliance.
A. The public glare has a number of difficult or challenging aspects. One is the focus on quarterly earnings. It’s hard for many publicly traded companies to make strategic investments that have long-term paybacks. It’s hard to penalize what may be two or three quarterly earnings reports. The markets won’t tolerate that. There is also the fact that compliance can be distracting.
Q. Are you saying a private-equity firm can do a better job cleaning up an underperforming asset than a public company can?
A. The private-equity teams that come in, when they’re successful, can create a new culture and introduce new leaders. They can create a sense that this is a new team and a fresh start. There’s a definite cultural transformation. Incentives and executive compensation can change. We can recruit people because the compensation systems can be skewed toward long-term results. We can attract people because they don’t want to be in public companies.
Q. Why don’t they want to be in public companies?
A. I think the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other requirements of the public arena inevitably have a cost. I wouldn’t overstate the cost. It’s one of several factors. But we are able to recruit some C.E.O.’s and other executives to run our companies because they say to themselves, “Boy, if I could do this in private, it would be a lot better. My own performance would be better and the company would be better.”
Q. But, again, from a public policy point of view, how can we know that privately held companies are being governed well?
A. Our investors know as much, if not more, about our investments and returns than do public companies’ investors. We have a more limited audience, so it’s easier to communicate with them. A firm like ours might have 75 or 80 investors. That’s a target audience that’s easier to communicate with.
There’s a lot of continuity because many investors have been with us for a long time. But a public company’s shareholding base could change literally in the fraction of a second. We have the advantage.
From purely my anecdotal experience, virtually all business executives who I know would much rather work for a company funded with private, rather than public, equity.
Whenever the subject of a discussion is great Texas golf courses, two courses should always be included in the discussion — Jack Burke, Jr. and the late Jimmy Demaret‘s Champions Golf Club in Houston and Colonial Country Club in Ft. Worth, nicknamed “Hogan’s Alley” after the late Ben Hogan, a Ft. Worth native and arguably the best ball-striker in golf history.
Both of these golf courses are steeped in history and are phenomenal challenges. Champions is long and relatively wide open off the tee, but has huge greens that place a premium on getting the ball close to the hole on approach shots. Colonial is short and tight, with postage stamp greens.
Chad Campbell is a 30 year old West Texan from Andrews, Texas. After graduating from UNLV in 1996, Campbell worked his way through the mini-tours for five years before getting his Tour card in 2001 and, since that time, has established himself as one of the best ball-strikers on the Tour.
Last October, Campbell shot one of the best rounds of the year on the Tour when he shot an incredible 61 (10 under par) at Champions during the third round of the Tour Championship, which he went on to win the following day for his first Tour victory. Campbell won his second Tour victory earlier this year at Bay Hill.
Yesterday, in 25 mph wind conditions (i.e., extremely difficult for most golfers; no big deal for a West Texas boy), Campbell shot an equally incredible 61 (nine under par) at Colonial to bolt into a third round tie for the lead.
Campbell’s 61’s on these two great golf courses is the equivalent of pitching two perfect games in baseball. Campbell is now firmly established as one of the Tour’s rising stars and may now be the best Tour player who has not yet won a major golf tournament. The only flaw in his game at this point is inconsistent putting, but if he gets that part of his game to a more consistent level, watch out. Chad Campbell has serious game.
Sean Casey and Ken Griffey hit run scoring doubles off of normally reliable Brad Lidge in the bottom of the eighth on Saturday night in Cincy as the hard-hitting Reds sent the Stros to their third straight defeat, 8-7. The win moves the Reds into a first place tie with the Stros and the Cubs in the NL Central. All three clubs have a 24-18 record.
The Rocket struggled in this start, giving up six runs and nine hits in six innings, including four walks. Despite Clemens’ strong start this season, his elevated walks total is a clear sign that his performance level is trending downward.
The Stros’ stroked 15 hits and were led by red-hot Lance Berkman, who hit his fourth dinger in the last five games and had two doubles. Of course, manager Jimy Williams continues to bat Berkman fifth in the order when he is a far superior hitter to any other Astro and thus, should be batting in the postion in the order that would maximize his plate appearances.
In fact, Williams’ dubious decision-making is becoming a big problem for the Stros. Despite near deification among local reporters as being a real “baseball guy” (whatever that means), Williams in reality is a mediocre manager, as has been explained earlier here and here. Late in this game, Williams again allowed his irrational prejudice in favor of veteran players to hurt the Stros’ chances of winning.
In the top of the ninth, consecutive hits by Kent, Berkman and Ensberg scored a run to make it 8-7 with no outs. After Berkman was cut down on a fielder’s choice, the Stros still had runners on first and second with one out. Inexplicably, with the game on the line, Williams trotted two of the worst hitters in Major League Baseball — Brad Ausmus and Jose Vizcaino — to the plate. The Stros’ bench is not strong this season, but Williams’ refusal to use the far superior hitter second year man Jason Lane in that situation is yet another example of Williams’ questionable use of veteran players over better, but younger, alternatives.
As noted earlier, Williams non-sensical platooning of the emerging star Ensberg last season with the far inferior Geoff Blum may have been the difference in the close NL Central race that the Stros ended up losing to the Cubs by a game. This season’s NL Central race will likely by just as close, and the Stros’ small margin of error cannot afford Williams’ continued poor decision-making.
Wade Miller tries to right the Stros’ ship the Sunday afternoon game against the Reds’ Corey Lidle. After closing out the Reds series tomorrow behind Tim Redding, the Stros come home for key home and home series with the Cubs and Cards.