The man, the myth, the SOB: A look into the life of Commish Kirby

Billy Grant
The Bigs Insider

Martinsville--Sam Kirby eats dry oatmeal for breakfast("Modern-day nails," he says). After a pumping gold bullion weights("Keeping it real"), he goes for a run on his elephant-skin treadmill("Better on my knees."). Kirby is a man that few people know and even less people understand.

On top of the world: In the off-season Kirby maintains a tea farm where he employs 6-12 year old migrant workers at $2.00 an hour. "If not me than who?" Kirby asks.

Kirby the current Bigs baseball commissioner, manager of the Martinsville Meerkats and the Director of Baseball Operations for the Washington Whales keeps a busy schedule. Juggling three major franchises seems like too much for many, but not for a man who gathers much of his energy from maple and brown sugar oatmeal. "He's a tireless worker," Kirby's personal assistant Harry Jazzercise said of Kirby, "and a gigantic pervert."

A man with few true friends: Kirby looks out his front gate at the outside world who loves and fears him.

Managers around the league respect and fear Kirby much like citizens fear a ruthless tyrant. "Last year he fined me for looking at him funny," Portland Pats manager Todd Smith said, "then he made me pay the fine in Yoruba currency. Imagine asking for that at your local bank." "He runs the league with an ironfist," MLB.com analyst Peter Gammons said of Kirby "and lives life like a bull in a china shop."

Kirby's success has come at the cost of lasting partnerships. For example, the flight of the longtime Bigs team, the Greenville Gaywads, was a result of Kirby's unparalleled hubris. "Kirby made it look like I wanted out," manager Brian Whitaker said last week, "but he was trying to broker a deal that would require me to give him weekly foot massages. Even though Sam has beautiful feet, good enough for him to be a foot model for women's shoes, I walked out the door."

But few can dispute the fact that right now Kirby has a baseball team in second place, another in third and a league that is reaping the benefits of his leadership. And despite his questionable lifestyle his hometown is still buying into the Kirby brand. "We can't keep oatmeal in stock," Betty West manager of the Winn Dixie in Martinsville said, "people are even eating it dry in the check-out line."