JIM LEYLAND NEWS

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:07 pm

With all the good players we have, if Leyland does not turn it around by mid-season next year, I hope he is canned! If it does get better, then we know it was Chucks fault or the players being lazy fat cats!

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:34 pm

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Tue Oct 07, 2008 5:50 am

Saturday, October 4, 2008
Jerry Green
Green: Tigers' Leyland should be thankful

The hierarchy of a ballclub is quite simple. It works from Bossman A to Hired Gun B to Operational Chief C and down to Acolytes D.

This is known as the chain of command. It has always been this way in the business of baseball. And it is no secret the Tigers work on the whims of the Bossman, the owner.

And the whims of Mike Ilitch are strong and capricious and usually creative.

Jim Leyland, at this juncture, should be pleased he has a job for 2009.

He himself had to clamp down his Acolytes, D in the pecking order, and fire Chuck Hernandez and Jeff Jones, his coaches in charge of pitching. They were moves he did not make by choice. He was forced to fire them.

Leyland was forced to fire them to protect his job, as Operational Chief C -- the manager.

And now, too, that job is in jeopardy.

A day after this past season ended with the Tigers a last-place ballclub -- again -- Leyland complained he was miffed about not receiving an extension in his contract for 2010, during an interview on WJR radio with Mitch Albom.

Leyland was quite vociferous about the situation. For sure, his gripes did not improve the mood of Ilitch. I read it as a virtual dare to the Bossman.

The plain fact is managers of last-place ballclubs do not earn extensions to their contract.

The next plain fact is when Dave Dombrowski, Hired Gun B as general manager, did not offer an extension to Leyland, the Tigers hierarchy was issuing an ultimatum.

Dombrowski, of course via Ilitch, was informing Leyland, quite succinctly, he was a lame-duck manager. The Tigers had better play closer to their collected abilities in 2009 or it will be Ilitch's way or the highway.

The statement happens to be stolen from one Sparky Anderson, former Detroit manager and Hall of Famer, who kept using the phrase as one of his clichés.

Ilitch's power of ownership is that he once directed Sparky toward the highway.

It was a nudge when Sparky left the Tigers. Not a true shove or a firing, but enough for Sparky to take the road west.

The point is Ilitch is not averse to firing name managers with the Tigers or coaches with the Red Wings.

Period!

Since he purchased the Tigers in August 1992, Ilitch has employed seven managers. The first six were ousted and dispatched along Ilitch's highway.

Among them was Alan Trammell, in truth the Tigers' only iconic ballplayer since the retirement of Al Kaline more than 30 years ago. The Bossman hired Trammell to manage because of his popularity. The Hired Gun, with the backing of the Bossman, fired Trammell because he was unable to win without decent ballplayers.

Leyland is aware how the business works. In a conversation I had with him when it became obvious that the Tigers were failing during the 2008 season despite their load of talent, Leyland went over his background.

"I've never been fired," he said.

He had managed the Pirates. He helped build the Pittsburgh ballclub and then finished first three successive years in the '90s. The talent, Barry Bonds included, left -- and a few years later so did Leyland. It was his personal decision.

He moved to the Marlins. He won the World Series at the end of his first season -- with a championship club built by Dombrowski. As Hired Gun in Florida, Dombrowski was then commanded to slash salaries -- in essence destroy a championship-caliber ballclub.

One poor season with the Marlins sent Leyland away, voluntarily, again.

Onward he went to manage the Rockies. He discovered the situation in Colorado was intolerable and departed -- his personal choice.

Three ballclubs! Still never fired!

It was seven years before Leyland felt inclined to manage again. In 2005, the day after the Hired Gun, with obvious approval of the Bossman, had fired Trammell, Leyland was hired as Operational Chief. Manager of the Tigers. It was the job that had been his longtime ambition. He had been groomed in the Detroit farm system 30 years earlier.

And with the Tigers, his first season was joyous. The Tigers won the pennant in 2006 and reached the World Series. It was a year of baseball renaissance in Detroit, where the game had been afflicted with apathy during Bossman Ilitch's ownership.

Dombrowski, the Hired Gun, had brought in enough talent to win. And with Leyland in charge of field operations, the Tigers won. The Tigers slipped backward in 2007, but Leyland was awarded a contract extension through 2009.

Then the disaster of 2008 for a team with great expectations -- fortified, supposedly, by Dombrowski's wintertime trades. The Tigers were favored in betting rooms and by outspoken baseball men to win the World Series this very month.

The ballclub fell apart at the outset. The Tigers never recovered from their seven-game losing streak in the first seven games.

After the Tigers traded away Pudge Rodriguez at the beginning of August, I wrote simply: "They raised the white flag of surrender."

Indeed, they did.

It was about this time Leyland and I had our one-on-one conversation, summing up his career.

"I know what you're driving at," he said, and having known each other for 30 years he had read my thoughts.

"They'd have to fire me," he said. "I want to manage the Tigers."

And after a 74-88 season -- an embarrassment regardless of the pitching woes and injuries -- he still wants to manage the Tigers.

I believe Leyland is an outstanding manager. I believe, however, he has put himself at the brink with his public disclosures about his disappointment in being denied an extension for 2010.

I believe, furthermore, that the Tigers gave up -- quit, a nasty word -- during August and September. They fell to last place and stayed there -- behind Kansas City, a cheapskate franchise.

Ilitch, the Bossman, had given the Tigers a $139 million payroll, second-highest in the major leagues, with the great expectation of reaching the World Series.

Yet both the Operations Chief and the Hired Gun admitted to their failings.

"I stunk," Leyland told reporters numerous times during September.

"I'm embarrassed," Dombrowski told the journalists this past week when the season ended. "I had a bad year."

But Dombrowski, as Hired Gun, has the burden of pulling the trigger. He gave Leyland his instructions. And as the season ended, Leyland was forced to tell Acolytes Hernandez and Jones that they had been fired.

Two scapegoats -- because the pitching staff was ruined by injuries to Jeremy Bonderman, Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney; unexpected ineffectiveness by Justin Verlander, Nate Robertson and Dontrelle Willis; and overdue withering due to age of Kenny Rogers.

Plus the tinkering ordered by the Bossman and the Hired Gun. They made trades that didn't work except for the addition of Miguel Cabrera. They went nuts with position switches that mostly became failures. Carlos Guillen -- first base and third base. Cabrera -- third base and first base. Brandon Inge -- third base, catcher, center field, third base again.

Two years ago, the Tigers enjoyed their marvelous season, with the pennant with Guillen at shortstop and Inge at third base. That's where they belong in 2009.

And that's where Leyland should be permitted to play them throughout the season. If Leyland survives.

Last Sunday, in discussing the firings of two of his coaches, he was asked whether he would battle if the replacements were promoted from within, Leyland indicated his true feelings.

"Not at the expense of my job," he said.

Yet he jeopardized his job two days later with his public disclosure of his disappoint about not receiving the 2010 extension.

And to me his midsummer words resounded:

"They'll have to fire me!"

A virtual dare!

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:24 pm

I think Leyland is a goner after 2009!!

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:28 pm

Really surprised he's not gone now. Lots of managers in MLB gone this year for a lot less!
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 26, 2008 12:30 pm

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:43 pm

Seattle...Oakland....
_________________
There are three things in my life which I really love: God, my family, and baseball. The only problem - once baseball season starts, I change the order around a bit. ~Al Gallagher, 1971

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:47 pm

he can go anywhere, as long as it is not Det!

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Mon Oct 27, 2008 8:20 am

YEAH!

Subject: Re: JIM LEYLAND NEWS Fri Oct 31, 2008 2:25 pm