The great Connie Mack had a very specific set of criteria for every player that he signed, keeping in mind that a baseball manager of his day would be expected to do his own signings, scouting, trading, re-signing, and every other duty expected of a GM today.
If a player that he was looking at didn't meet his criteria, then Mack wanted nothing to do with him. He wanted players who were respectful and respectable, yet picked up Ty Cobb at the end of his career. He wanted educated players, yet signed Jimmie Foxx (a high school dropout) and Rube Waddell (who didn't earn his nickname ironically). He wanted even-tempered players, yet signed the explosive Lefty Grove (who smashed up more than one clubhouse after a poor outing). On the mound, he wanted power pitchers exclusively, yet signed Eddie Rommel (junkballer) and Eddie Plank (the Jamie Moyer of his day).
Mack was willing to bend a bit on players who could be All-Stars. Anyone filling any type of depth role would get no such leeway. In this case, Bobby Ryan isn't exactly third-line material; he's an All-Star caliber scoring forward and we're fans of a team that needs them. Consider what else we heard from that particular article, where powers-that-be were openly talking about dreams that they were having involving certain players and situations. Burke's blather about Ryan...whatever.
