There are obvious perks to being a manager of a Chicago major league team in Chicago.  You’re famous and you have the respect and adoration of at least half the town.  You get to hang with people like Derrick Lee and umm.. Nick Swisher.

Ozzie gettin’ his groove on for a Chevy dealer

But then there those days where you throw all your self-respect out the window.  All for an ad for a two-bit Chevy dealership. 

C’mon Lou… was this in your contract or are you really that hard up for money??

Tags: Cubs, Managers, White Sox by The Baseball Zealot
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Arroyo 1 IP, 11 H, 10 R, 10 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO, 3 HR, 6.52 ERA (L, 4-7)

Marco Scutaro singles, Joe Inglett walks, Alex Rios singles, bases loaded, nobody out. Vernon Wells strikes out, how embarrassing! A sacfly by Matt Stairs scores Scutaro. Scott Rolen launches a three run home run. Lyle Overbay doubles, Gregg Zaun rips a two run bomb. Mound visit results in a force play by Inglett, after Adam Lind & Scutaro singled. End of first inning 6-0 Blue Jays.

Reds score one in the top of the 2nd, there is hope, no there’s not. Rios homers to left, Wells singles, Stairs doubles home Vernon. Another trip to the mound, a wild pitch moves Stairs to 3rd, Rolen doubles Matt home. Coach comes out and takes ball from Arroyo. Overbay singles Rolen to third off new pitcher Gary Majewski. Zaun pops out, Lind’s singles plates Rolen to close the book on Bronson. Scutaro singles to load the bases, Overbay scores on Inglett’s groundout, and then Rios strikes out, 11-1 after two.

I suppose I could have given the Linescore of the Day to the Toronto Blue Jays O-ffense, but decided Arroyo had as much to do for the outburst as anyone. It should be noted that this was the first game back for new/old Blue Jays skipper Cito Gaston. Manager John Gibbons & hitting coach Gary Denbo lost their jobs in part due to a lack of offense. Before the game new hitting coach told the club, “don’t think, just go up there & swing the bats”. Nice coaching Gino!

Tags: Linescores of the Day, Managers by Teddy Ballgame
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Some thoughts about the first play of his Mets managerial Debut:

Former Sox manager Jerry Manuel gets another managerial job. Should be interesting to see if the Mets put on a second half charge.

I wonder if Jerry Manuel lost control of the team on the FIRST PLAY of his first game Wednesday night against the Angels. Did you guys see it?

First batter of the game. Jose Reyes beat out an infield hit, but pulled a muscle (had a cramp, something) while running to first. He limped around for a while, but wanted to stay in the game. Manuel pulled him, and he had a spectacular, equipment throwing tantrum on the way into the dugout. Manuel took it “like Ghandi.” I thought it was a direct challenge to Manuel’s authority.

So did the guys I was watching the game with. One of them asked me, “If that happened to you when you were managing, what would you do?”

I said, “It did. And Tara got her butt chewed so bad after the game that I made her cry. And she didn’t play for several games after that. She came back a chastened 16-year-old. And never did that again. Not to me, anyway.”

In 2005, Mike Scioscia threw Jose Guillen (a 100-RBI guy that year) completely off the team forever for a similar display of showing up his manager. With a week to go and the Angels one game behind the first place A’s in the standings. It would have been easy for Mike to let it go. Or deal with it later. Or fine him. Or something. If the Angels hadn’t caught the A’s and finished first that year, Mike would have had some serious explaining to do to Upper Management.

In the Mets’ case, Jose Reyes played the next night. I like Jose Reyes, but we shall see.

DonS

Tags: Managers by DonS
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Metsblog.com has a poll on whether the Mets should have fired Willie Randolph.  The results so far are surprisingly close at least from my view of the situation.

Tags: Managers by The Baseball Zealot
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In light of Willie Randolph’s firing, it looks like NL All-Star Manager Clint Hurdle will most likely be looking for a replacement for Randolph as coach in the mid-summer classic. 

A snarky commenter to this Rocky Mountain News article on the topic says that Hurdle better be more worried about his own his own job.  A fair point considering the Rocks are 28-42.

As for Randolph, I was pretty far off on his 2008 prospects.  I had him down in our 2008 pre-season predictions.  Not for first manager fired though but NL Manager of the Year.  Yikes, you can’t get much further than that. 

As we all know, it’s always the manager that reaps the rewards for his team’s successes and conversely is the first to the suffer the consequences when things begin to sour. 

ESPN’s Buster Olney has a writeup on the whole Randolph firing that’s worth reading.  Boardroom backstabbing, indeed.

Tags: Managers by The Baseball Zealot
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Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg is serving the third day of his three-day suspension today. It seems Sandberg, manager of the Peoria Chiefs, took exception with an opposing player bunting for a basehit, while his team was leading 6-0. The feisty manager engaged the other manager in a discussion, which led to a bench-clearing brawl.

Some might say, it’s the minor leagues and this player was just brushing up on his bunting skills, a learning process. To which I’d say, you don’t bunt for a basehit when leading 6-0, a learning process. From a Hall of Famer, way to go Ryno!

Tags: Cubs, Hall of Fame, Managers, Minor Leagues by Teddy Ballgame
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I don’t know if this is a prevailing feeling among all Brewers fans but BrewersFanatics is getting a bit frustrated with Ned Yost. 

“The bottom line is changes need to be made. The same lineup can’t be sent out there everyday and be expected to kick things into gear. This team is struggling. It’s not time to put up or shut up, for Ned Yost it’s time to put up or pack up.”

Back at the beginning of the season when the TBZ staff did our MLB predictions for 2008, I had Yost down as First Manager to be Fired in 08.  Not that don’t think Ned isn’t a capable skipper (he is).  I just thought that expectations were going to be pretty high for the Brewers this year.  Couple that with a more competitive NL Central and you gotta figure the pressure has to be high.  And as things go in MLB, the manager is the first one to go. 

The BrewCrew are taking on the Cardinals for a three game series.  Yost could help his cause with a series win against the division rivals.

Tags: Managers by The Baseball Zealot
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