Little out as Red Sox Manager

ESPN TICKER ^

[rs79bm]

The Boston Red Sox, still smarting from a bitter seven-game loss to the rival Yankees in the ALCS, fired manager Grady Little on Monday, a high-ranking team official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

ESPN's Peter Gammons, who reported earlier Monday that Little would be fired Monday, reports that the team will formally announce the move 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.

[Petronski]

I guess the Bosox weren't about to leave him in too long. LOL

[RJCogburn]

I'd vote for the Rem-dawg

[Rummyfan]

He should have pulled Pedro at the end of the seventh inning.


Grady Little, meet Gene Mauch!

[TheBigB]

Bill Buckner is available...

[ilgipper]

That's an organization that knows how to lose. This guy won 93-95 games for them each year, and took them to the ALCs this year. I am sorry for Boston fans that the owners are this rash. I can almost guarantee that they will be out of it by Sept 1 next year.

[rs79bm]

Buckner is a little shaky on defense, which the Red Sox are trying to improve on.

[RabidBartender]

Hire Peter Gammons. That will get him off of TV and force him to put up or shut up.

Win-win for the fans. Well, not the Sox fans.

[Steve_Seattle]

They're firing him because he stuck with the game's best pitcher (Pedro Martinez) in a critical ballgame, rather than go to a shaky bullpen. And if he'd pulled Martinez and his replacement had given up a home run, they'd have fired him for that, too.

[expatpat]

He'll probably go to the Orioles.

[expatpat]

He's better now -- he's wearing oversize cleats and hockey goaltender's pads.

[j_k_l]

It was Little that cost them the series! Now that he is gone, I am sure that will fix the problem.

I know as an Indians fan that getting rid of Hargrove sure fixed the Tribe. After all he cost them the World Series in '95 & '97.

Look how many the Tribe has won since the tossed him.

I would hate to think that it had anything to do with talent (tongue firmly implanted in cheek).

[gdani]

How 'bout Joe Torre to the Red Sox?

Now THAT would be a story.........

[nutmeg]

ping!

[Guillermo]

Firing Grady Little will not bring back Babe Ruth from the dead.

[OldFriend]

And the Yankees are bashing and trashing Aaron Boone who hit the home run that won the Boston game!

[Az Joe]

Shaky bullpen? Don't think so. They did pretty good in that series.

Why would he walk out to the mound in the 8th inning? Did he really think he was going to get an objective assessment from Pedro?

He abdicated his responsibility as a manager. He should have been fired.

[Guillermo]

Last I heard babe Ruth is still dead.

[discostu]

Problem is the game's best pitcher is well known to be a 7 inning pitcher, his pitch count was high and his stuff was obviously getting shakey. I can see putting him out for one or two batters to see if he can tough it out, but it was painfully obvious during the first batter of the 8th that Pedro was done for the night. A manager's job is to give his team the best opportunity, a tired pitcher that's hanging it doesn't do that no matter how shiny his resume is.

[Steve_Seattle]

Right after the Yankees-Sox series, I thought some sportswriter on Fox put it into perspective. He said that some in the media and some fans would need to cast it in terms of the Sox (and the manager in particular) "blowing" the series, rather than the Yankees simply winning it. But somebody has to lose, no matter how well the teams play, and it's not fair to blame the loser for "blowing" it.