The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Oakland A’s have fired Ken Macha.
To everybody in Oakland – especially the A’s players – this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Macha has been criticized by many players throughout the season for the way he communicates with people and how openly critical he is in discussing injured athletes (often calling athletes who couldn’t play due to injury “non-entities”). Apparently, it got so bad this season in the A’s clubhouse that many players threatened not to return to the team if Macha was still the manager.
One of the disgruntled players was back up catcher Adam Melhuse who shared insight on his relationship with Macha throughout the 2006 season:
“It’s tough to go to work every day knowing you’re working for someone who doesn’t think much of you as a player and on top of that, doesn’t even acknowledge you.”
In other MLB news, the Chicago Cubs have won the Lou Piniella sweepstakes according to ESPN.com. Piniella agreed to a 3-year deal with the Cubs, replacing Dusty Baker as manager.
Financial terms have not been finalized, but the radio station is reporting that Piniella will receive approximately $3 million annually. The Cubs officially will announce the hiring of Piniella on Tuesday at Wrigley Field.
Piniella, 63, faces a difficult task in turning around a Cubs franchise which posted a 66-96 record in 2006 and has reached the postseason just twice in the last 17 years.
For Chicago’s sake, hopefully Piniella exercises a little more patience with the Cubs situation than he did in Tampa Bay with the Devil Rays. With that said, however, we’ve all seen what the Detroit Tigers have done with Jim Leyland and maybe Piniella can turn things around in Chi-Town.
