Great Googly-Moogly!
Posted on 10/27/2003 9:59:19 AM PST by Chancellor Palpatine
BOSTON -- The Boston Red Sox, still smarting from a bitter seven-game loss to the rival Yankees in the ALCS, will fire manager Grady Little on Monday afternoon, ESPN's Peter Gammons reports.
Gammons reports that the Red Sox will announce the firing at a 3 p.m. ET news conference at Fenway Park.
Monday's Boston Herald, citing a Red Sox source, reported that two candidates to succeed Little could be former Indians manager Charlie Manuel and former Red Sox second baseman Jerry Remy, a television analyst for NESN, a regional sports network partly owned by the Red Sox.
According to the report, others on the Red Sox list are Yankees third-base coach Willie Randolph, Yankees first-base coach Lee Mazzilli, Dodgers third-base coach Glenn Hoffman and former Phillies skipper Terry Francona, now the A's bench coach.
Little's dismissal has been hinted since the series ended. Although Boston's CBS affiliate, WBZ, reported Sunday that Little would be fired Monday, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein told ESPN on Sunday night that the report was not true.
Epstein said the team had begun its review of Little and hoped to make a decision on the manager's future "as soon as possible," but said that "no decision" had been made on whether to pick up Little's contract option for next season.
On Friday, a Red Sox official told the Herald that he would be "real surprised" if Little survived this offseason. Multiple team sources told the paper that all signs pointed to Little's option, which expires Friday, not being picked up.
"He's not (team president) Larry (Lucchino)'s guy -- if he were Larry's guy, (Lucchino) would have defended him by now," a source close to Little told the Boston Globe.
Earlier last week, Little said he was ready for the worst.
"I'm prepared for the likelihood," Little told the Globe. "I am not sure that I want to manage that team. That's how I felt when I drove out of town."
Little has been criticized for his decision to stick with tiring ace Pedro Martinez in the eighth inning of Game 7 against the Yankees. Martinez failed to hold a 5-2 lead, and New York won in the 11th inning on Aaron Boone's homer off knuckleballer Tim Wakefield.
The Red Sox have insisted that Little's future will not be determined by the one decision, but according to the Herald, the team was concerned about Little's lack of reliance on stats.
Many key Red Sox players, including Todd Walker and Manny Ramirez, publicly expressed support for Little's return.
In Little's two years as Red Sox manager, Boston was 93-69 and 95-67, and the Sox qualified for the playoffs this season for the first time since 1999. Little became the Red Sox' 43rd manager on March 11, 2002, after Joe Kerrigan was fired.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Hardly... they won IN SPITE of him.
The Sox had something like 7 players have CAREER YEARS this season, and all we could manage was a Wild Card???
That being said, the punkness of Pedro is so great that it would take huge karmic adjustments to balance.
That being said, however, the punkness of Pedro is so great that it would take huge karmic adjustments to balance it.
I don't excuse him for leaving Pedro in. That was a grave error. I wouldn't trust Pedro's word on it. The manager has to make the right call for all 25 guys, not just one. I am just saying that 95 wins is not too shabby, especially since they lacked depth in pitching.
Well, then let em hire Linda Cohn as manager. She is unwatchable AND unlistenable.
Please. I am trying to eat here.
puhlease.
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