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The Oakland Telegraph
12 November 2034
Major awards for Gonzales and Beane as Forstar takes over at Oakland
By Dawn Ovanewera, new beginnings correspondent
After a season of unbridled success for the Oakland A's, there were no surprises at the MLB end of season awards bash last night, when starting pitcher Felipe Gonzales became the latest A's pitcher to walk away with the American League Cy Young award, while former GM Paulie Beane won the AL manager of the year for the tenth time.
The 26-year-old Gonzales has been a sensation all year, recording just two losses en route to a stunning 22-2 record and 2.84 ERA mark. Beane traded a superb relief pitcher, Nathan Boyd, to get Gonzales from Pittsburgh a year ago, but he will reflect on ultimately making a very good decision with that trade. By a neat symmetry, the National League Cy Young winner was Washington's veteran pitcher Lucio Vargas, whom Beane allowed to leave Oakland as a free agent, thereby simultaneously making Beane reflect on making what panned out to be a not very good decision.
New Oakland A's general manager David Forstar said to reporters at the event, through slightly gritted teeth, he was delighted that his first act as leader of the organisation was to hark back to the achievements of his predecessor. "Paulie has been this organisation's greatest leader, even by the illustrious standards of those who came before him. If I can come even remotely close to what he's done, I'll be delighted and I'd hope the fans would be too". Fan spokesman O. Clandmad said that supporters had, with astonishing unreasonableness, become accustomed to ridiculous once-in-a-lifetime levels of success now, and would probably not tolerate only being "remotely" as good as under Beane. Beane himself offered no comment, mainly because he wasn't in a position to formulate actual, coherent words; with no reason to get up in the morning he decided to get absolutely plastered on the evening's free booze.
Forstar refused to comment on rumours that Beane has not even cleared his things out of the GM's office suite yet, and that Forstar was still working from his old desk for the assistant to the assistant to the assistant manager. He said, somewhat passive aggressively: "We are still in the process of the handover period between us. This transition phase is due to be completed shortly." He confirmed reports that Beane would not be making the mistake of so many long-standing sporting team leaders and, on retirement, moving up to be a director or other figurehead role within the organisation. Beane will be making a clean break from the club, giving Forstar the room to make his own mistakes, sorry, to put his own mark on the team, without working under Beane's massive shadow.
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