Local & State Headlines

Peanuts’ general manager fired

• Keith Michlig is fired as the GM of the South Georgia Peanuts less than a year after taking the job.

Danny Aller

ALBANY — The South Georgia Peanuts’ “Fan Appreciation Night” in Albany earlier this year was a moment that general manager Keith Michlig says gave him “goose-bumps.”

“I stood up in the stands in front of all the fans with my mic that night,” Michlig began, “and I told everyone how much we appreciated their support in our first year. And thanks to them, the South Georgia Peanuts would be back in 2008.

Michlig, however, will not.

After less than a year at the helm, Michlig was fired late Friday afternoon by South Coast League CEO Jamie Toole, who said that under Michlig’s direction, the Peanuts simply did not meet the financial expectations he and fellow league owners desired.

“On the business side, we didn’t perform well in Albany, and certainly not as well as the teams in the other markets,” said Toole, who ranked the Peanuts fifth out of the league’s six franchises in terms of overall revenue earned, with the only team that was worse being the Bradenton Juice — a club that essentially had no home base and traveled for the entire season last year after the league failed to secure a minor-league facility for them to play in before the inaugural campaign kicked off — as the only club that was worse.

“Keith’s a class act and an outstanding guy, but it came down to philosophical differences. And we’ve decided to go in a different direction.”

The news was delivered to Michlig during a meeting Friday in Macon — some four hours before he and his staff waere set to take a week off for Thanksgiving vacation.

“Shocked, disappointed, frustrated ... all of the above,” Michlig said of his reaction to the decision. “I really felt we were headed in the right direction.”

The news comes on the heels of former manager Wally Backman saying a little more than a month ago there was “no chance” he would return to the team, coupled with the loss of media relations director Matt Pauley, who resigned at the end of the season, and several other lower-level staff members who left on their own accord. Macon GM Ric Sissler, who was recently promoted to vice president of Georgia operations overseeing both Georgia teams, will look after the franchise in the interim. That only leaves community relations and ticket manager Chris Bell as the lone remaining employee in the Peanuts’ front office with a little less than five months before the 2008 season is due to kick off.

And even that — at least in South Georgia — now appears to be in question.

“I will never say never,” said Toole when asked if the recent turmoil befalling the Peanuts franchise would force the league to fold up shop in Albany after one season. “We have every intention of being there because expansion in this league is important to us, and you don’t get there by folding a team. That being said, we have a lot to improve on before 2008 and we made a lot of mistakes in Year 1. It started at the top with me, and trickled on down. All we can do from here is learn from those mistakes and try to get better.”

Getting better, however, starts first with the league getting out of the red and into the black. Reports have swirled since the inaugural season ended that the SCL was suffering financial hardship and that drastic changes would have to be made in 2008 to get it back on track, from lowering players’ and managers’ salaries, to cutting travel expenses.

“No bones about it: We didn’t have a good first year financially,” Toole said, offering no further details on just how bad things were or what definitive changes were in store.

When asked to confirm or deny some of those reports about the SCL’s financial issues, Michlig’s response was simple: “No comment.”

Michlig did, however, say that he was told each market “lost almost a million dollars,” which he felt likely compounded the decision to let him go and start fresh with a new marketing strategy.

And that, said the former GM — who felt he had worked tirelessly to get ready for 2008 ever since the 2007 season ended — was the most disappointing thing of all.

“Albany is a relationship- driven town, and to now have to go back and call all those people I’ve built relationships with and explain what’s happened, is going to be tough because I really felt we had the business owners, fans and community excited about next year,” said Michlig, who will stay on with the team until the end of November, tying up loose ends as the search for a new GM gets under way.

“But it’s a business decision, and I understand it. We were weak on corporate sales, and I know that. But I never said I was the greatest salesman out there. Yet, when (the league) came to me two months ago and told me what needed to be done, I signed off on it and truly believed we could do it. We just didn’t meet those expectations.”

Michlig did, however, feel the league’s newfound financial expectations were beyond “lofty.”

“For any business, a 7-, 10- or even 12-percent increase in profit would be considered a success,” he said. “(The SCL) wanted something like a 70- to 80- percent increase, and that’s not just challenging, it’s a major hurdle.”As for where the Peanuts go from here, Toole said that he does not have a new GM in mind, nor are the Peanuts any closer to hiring a new manager.

“The way our system works, the GM and manager of the team don’t really have that close a relationship, so the two positions and when they’re hired don’t have anything to do with one another,” he said. “In an ideal situation, we’d like to have everything in place by January or February. But nothing has been decided yet.”

Michlig says he’d like to stay in Albany after relocating his wife and two-year- old son to accept the GM position with the Peanuts last year. The couple also welcomed a new addition to their family in September when their second son was born, making the news even that much more difficult to digest.

“Looking back, I will definitely have some fond memories from my time here. But this certainly isn’t one of them, especially considering the timing of the decision and the positive direction I felt we were headed,” Michlig said. “When those fans gave me that ovation that night during Fan Appreciation, it truly sent shivers down my spine because I knew I’d helped create something special in a town where historically minor league baseball hasn’t always been a winner. It was a special moment, and it stings to know I’m no longer a part of it.”

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