Liane Luckman was hired at mid-season 1999 at the urging of assistant director of scouting, Josh Logan, hired over the protests of the club's ethicist, Suzann Moertl. Luckman received a strong endorsement as well from Fate Norris, who declared "that gal's got doubt in spades," and from the Quad City chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, which had long insisted that the Moline team ought to balance Moertl's inspired optimism with a more secular, skeptical voice.
"And I'm glad to be that voice," declared Luckman. "I'm not like that softy Suzann. I don't care that it says x in a god damn book. I ask why. I want to see the empirical evidence. And don't pass off that God the watchmaker argument either. I've heard that one before, and that's a watch I'm not buying."
The range of Luckman's duties with the club varies. She she has already begun working with the front office in contract negotiations, arguing against values-based incentive clauses placed there at the suggestion of Moertl. She has also asked that certain uplifting slogans around the office be replaced with more moderate advice such as "Don't believe it if you see it; test it, then test it again" and "God won't save you; save yourself: invest in U.S. Savings Bonds."
Liane's influence has widened with the death of Fate Norris, who was an ethicist at heart, even in player evaluation for all his uncultured ways. Josh Logan is, in Liane's words, "much more the empiricist." In the short term that meant that morals clauses were not part of any tendered contracts to the latest draftees to the organization. It meant, more broadly, that in the January and March 2000 drafts, Logan and assistant John Dark addressed physical skills first and let character issues slide. "Hard work and ability aren't tied to moral purity," declares Liane. "That they are is only the tyranny of an archaic puritanism this country ought to have outgrown by now. The game of baseball has a moral dimension in poetry and art, not in talent evaluation."
Greens' G.M. Rolf Samuels says that Luckman serves as a "useful voice of reason and empiricism" for the team. He concludes, "Normally, I'd do that myself, but I've taken on a few extra duties lately."