Managerial Hot Seats Heat Up

So, Jim Lefebvre, would you like another managing opportunity, even though you have been burned by the increasingly hotter seats under all major league managers and fired by the Seattle Mariners, Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers?

Lefebvre, now the hitting instructor of the Cincinnati Reds, folds his arms as he watches batting practice at Dodger Stadium and answers, “Not really, unless it’s the right situation. Of course, who knows for sure what the right situation is anymore?”

Well, Joe Torre--fired three times himself--may know now, but then even the New York Yankee manager is never far from owner George Steinbrenner’s hot line.

Who knows for sure, indeed?

Tony Muser, formerly of the Kansas City Royals, became the fourth manager to be fired in April last week, joining Phil Garner of the Detroit Tigers, Davey Lopes of the Brewers and Buddy Bell of the Colorado Rockies. If you add Joe Kerrigan, fired by the new owners of the Boston Red Sox in spring training, that’s five before May.

There had never been more than two managers fired in the first month, and now, in varying degrees, the sharpened ax also threatens Jerry Narron of the Texas Rangers, Buck Martinez of the Toronto Blue Jays, Don Baylor of the Chicago Cubs, Larry Bowa of the Philadelphia Phillies and Charlie Manuel of the Cleveland Indians.

Hall of Fame manager Sparky Anderson watches the upheaval from the green fairways of Thousand Oaks and wonders if Muser, Garner, Lopes and Bell got dumber over the winter.

“These guys had managed enough for people to know one way or the other about them,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you make that decision about them in the winter, rather than going through all kinds of off-season discussions with them about your team, watching them through six weeks of spring training, and then firing them 15 or so games into the season?

“The clubs like to say, ‘Well, we wanted to go through spring training and see how we started.’ Common sense tells you it would have been a miracle if any of those four teams had started any other way than they did.”

Managers have always been hired to be fired, but corporate ownership and escalating payrolls have increased expectations and pressures.

In the hopeless situations of Kansas City, Milwaukee, Detroit and, to a lesser extent Colorado, the fired four were simply scapegoats.

Amid early attendance falloff, maybe management could divert the spotlight and convince skeptical fans that something was being done.

“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure now to win from the start,” Lefebvre said. “It’s all about putting people in the seats.”

The venerable Anderson didn’t disagree, but he laughed and said:

“What they say every time is, ‘Well, our attendance was falling.’ Do you think by changing those guys they’re going to change their attendance?

“Those are bad clubs, and they fired those guys to save their own hides. It’s that simple. Besides, most of the guys running clubs now are bean counters, and what does a bean counter know about running a baseball club?”

In reality, instability is rampant. There is constant turnover at all levels, and no real job security in the multiyear contracts being given managers at salaries ranging into millions of dollars.

In four tumultuous years under Fox, for instance, the Dodgers have employed four general managers and four managers.

Chairman Bob Daly has intentionally slipped out of the media spotlight now, hoping to let General Manager Dan Evans and Manager Jim Tracy put the spotlight back on baseball and restore stability.

Tracy’s contract was extended through 2004 at the end of last season.

He believes it essential for an organization’s success and a manager’s survival that the people who hold the gun avoid the tendency to put too much influence on one series or even one month of early games.

“If an organization doesn’t have that one person who understands how a 162-game schedule works and won’t be swayed by public perception or a difference of opinion internally, then you’re likely to find people pulling the trigger on a situation a lot quicker than they should have and wishing later they hadn’t,” Tracy said.

He added that 14 years in managerial and instructional capacities at all levels of the game have made him aware that he basically has to be his own man.

“I hope to last a long time in this job because I like it a lot,” he said. “I also like to be liked and feel I’ve accomplished some of that, but if I’m going to go about it only on the basis of trying to keep my job, I’m going to fail miserably.

“I haven’t been hired to please the public or anyone outside my work area. I’ve been hired to be fired, and I’ll ultimately be judged on my performance. I think that’s the way it’s always been for every manager.”

Perhaps, but the environment has also changed dramatically--economically and otherwise.

“It’s a totally different job now,” Lefebvre said. “People have no idea what it’s like. There’s greater pressure to win from the start, and you have to spend so much time with the media, front office and fans that you keep getting further away from what you need to do on the field.”

In addition, he said, the annual roster turnover is so extensive that players don’t get to learn what the manager is all about, and the manager--who spends as much time managing agents and contracts as he does players--seldom gets the three or four years necessary to implement a program with the same nucleus of players.

“I don’t think my firings had anything to do with my managerial ability,” Lefebvre said. “You have to have thick skin and you can’t take it personally. It’s strictly the way the game is. I mean, all any manager can do now is stay focused, build a philosophy for the future, and hope they give you enough of a future to make it work.”