ELItorial

In baseball, impatience a vice

It's October, folks, and a great time to be a baseball fan— but not a manager of an "under-performing" club. Within 48 hours of the final pitch of the season on Sun., Sept. 9, four clubs terminated their fearless leaders: Cincinnati chose not to renew its contract with Jack McKeon; Arizona parted ways with Buck Showalter; Gene Lamont was out in Pittsburgh, and Terry Francona got the ax in Philly.

MIKE FIALA/NEWSMAKERS Arizona Manager Buck Showalter was one of four managers who got axed by management anxious for wins.

In McKeon's case, the fact that he was the 1999 National League (NL) Manager of the Year meant nothing when he couldn't produce a playoff berth despite the addition of Ken Griffey, Jr. For Showalter, last season's 100-win streak was all but forgotten when, in year three of existence, the Diamondbacks failed to defend their division crown. Francona and Lamont suffered through admittedly miserable years, but they were at the helms of sinking ships. For Francona, the already low $45 million payroll was diced at midseason when he lost Curt Schilling, Andy Ashby, and practically everyone else that wasn't tied down. And Lamont's Pirates suffered injury after injury in a season best forgotten.

While the intricacies of each situation were somewhat different, the bottom line was essentially the same: produce results—immediately—or walk. Welcome to modern-day baseball, where patience is a dirty word. McKeon and Showalter each produced a playoff appearance for their teams in a combined six years of managing. Both had solid teams that under-produced this year. Both fell victim to obscenely quick trigger fingers, fingers on the hands of team officials who never learn.

Take a look at McKeon and the Reds. Adding Griffey to the lineup was certainly a plus. But the star center fielder then proceeded to complete arguably the worst year of his career. Griffey batted a very mediocre .271, a full 25 points below his .296 lifetime average. His 40 home runs and 118 RBI are certainly not to be ignored, but they pale in comparison to his 50-plus homers and 140-plus RBIs during his best seasons in Seattle. And in another side-effect of the trigger-happy syndrome, Reds GM Jim Bowden decided that the team was done in mid-July based on a mediocre first half and proceeded to deal ace Denny Neagle to the Yanks for next to nothing, tried to unload All-Star Barry Larkin to the Mets (Larkin vetoed the move), and sent outfielder Dante Bichette to Boston. Wouldn't it have been great to have Neagle in every fifth game last season or Bichette at bat as the Reds rallied at the end of August?

Showalter is perhaps an even better example. The skipper lost stars Matt Williams, Tony Womack, and Erubiel Durazo for significant parts of the season due to injuries. For the same reason, Todd Stottle-myre was limited to 18 starts all season long, and ace Randy Johnson sputtered down the stretch, going just 5-5 in his final 16 starts. With a good deal of this team under contract for the 2001 season, the chances of Showalter being able to improve upon this year's effort, assuming just a few of the aforementioned players stay healthy, is pretty good. Now a new manager will have to take over a demoralized team he doesn't know and attempt to right the ship as quickly as possible.

Patience is a virtue. Don't believe me? Just take a look at some of the teams that did make the playoffs this year. The San Francisco Giants have been under the leadership of Dusty Baker since the end of the '92 season. He stayed (was kept) despite the fact that the Giants have made only one playoff appearance—a loss in the division series at that— during that span. Nevertheless, management stood behind their manager, allowing him to develop the team. The result was the best record in baseball this season. In Atlanta, Bobby Cox has been the big cheese for a decade now, despite a World Series track record that makes the Bills' Super Bowl history seem cheery; Lou Pinella has been in Seattle since '93, with not a World Series appearance to his name. In Oakland, Art Howe has had five seasons of leeway to turn a young team into a competitor. In fact, Jerry Manuel of the White Sox is the only playoff-bound manager to be with his current team for fewer than five years.

It's the same short-sighted owners and GMs that wheel and deal on a whim in an attempt to build a winner immediately. Showalter's replacement will have to deal with a very different squad than Arizona fans saw leave the field on Sunday; the Diamondbacks are so heavily in debt from their attempt to build up a winner that they will have little choice but to go the way of the '97 Marlins and '98 Padres and dump salaries to the point of non-competitiveness. Francona's Phillies might have made it out of the gutter in the NL East had GM Ed Wade not declared the season kaput in July, putting his entire team on the auction block. In both cities, new managers will have to take over younger and cheaper teams next spring. What possible expectations can their fans have?

Players need time to gel with teammates; managers need time to establish a rapport with their players. Making moves to improve a team is a good thing. But rash, short-term decisions leave teams worse off in the long run. Dumping the manager of a mediocre or injury-plagued ballclub won't solve the problem. The problem now is to find a replacement.

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