They Gave Me Eyes But I Could Not See
Did two posts (here, and here) last month on the likeliest successors for each of the 30 current active big league skippers.
Since I’m delighted to post successful forecasts here, it’s incumbent on me to mention the other kind, in the wake of Trey Hillman’s dismissal as manager of the Royals, and his replacement by Ned Yost.
ATLANTA: Maybe Chico Cadahia or Eddie Perez, but I think the best bets are two former Cox lieutenants, Fredi Gonzalez of the Marlins, and ex-Brewers boss Ned Yost. If the latter were the obvious choice, he’d probably be back on the staff, not an advisor in KC.
KANSAS CITY: John Gibbons. Hiring a recently dismissed, no-nonsense ex-manager as your bench coach, is the standard process for anointing an heir apparent.
There’s an old Monty Python sketch about a terrible stage actor who ranks the difficulty of each role based on how many words it has. “But,” he adds, thoughtfully, “it’s not just about knowing all the words. It’s also important to get them in the right order!”
Sigh. Right guy, right logic, wrong prediction!
Baseball Nerd 
Keith, At least you had Ned Yost up for a Manager’s position. BTW, I am a lifelong Monty Python fan since the days I lived in London as a youth. Your Python asides on Countdown and in this blog always bring a smile to my face and a chuckle, if not an outright guffaw. I loved it when you interviewed the Pythons on your show a while back . Keep up the good work in both arenas of our mutual interest…Baseball and Politics!
Mahalo nui loa
Predictions can make dumb people look smart and smart people look dumb, so I wouldn’t sweat it. But I’d rather hear from Keith who he thinks the next manager should be, or should have been. Ned Yost doesn’t seem like a very good choice. The Brewers were a sloppy team when Yost was manager. They made a lot of mental mistakes, which for a young team is understandable but so are the Rays. Even the Angels have mostly young players now. Yost is even-keeled and that’s good for a team that’s going to have a lot of rough days but the fans of Kansas City deserve better. There’s a great baseball tradition there– I wish I could have witnessed the Yankees-Royals rivalry of the ’70s and ’80s– and Yost is a ho-hum choice for a franchise constantly settling for ho-hum, as in Jose Guillen. The most emotion I ever saw out of Yost was his insistence that C.C. Sabathia had pitched a no-hitter and made a throwing error rather than giving up an infield hit. And he was right, come to think of it.
Everyone has slumps. It’s the nature of baseball. I think Yost got a raw deal in Milwaukee and I am glad that someone of his calaber is going to take on that disaster that is the Kansas City Royals. I don’t follow the Royals, as I am not a fan of the AL. But, being from Missouri, I have many friends who are. For their sake I hope Yost can turn that club around. Lord knows they need the help.
I have one very important question to ask though. What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow? :>)
Learn to spell Marilyn. I meant caliber. Why is there no edit option on this blog?
Speaking of no edit option, I realize now that C.C. didn’t make a throwing error in that (almost) no hitter but rather he didn’t pick up a ball that was hit back to him.
Two stories.
One, on a Mets broadcast, Lindsey Nelson read an AP report that a manager was about to be fired and commented that AP didn’t have a great record of accuracy on those things. A couple of minutes later, what came over the ticker in the booth? “We do so!”
The other is, supposedly, when the Giants were looking for a manager in the early 1960s, Len Schecter, Stan Isaacs, and Larry Merchant were together at the winter meetings and thought, who is the least likely person ever to become a manager? They agreed: Yogi Berra. So they floated the rumor that the Giants wanted Yogi. That led to other reporters calling Yogi, who said he certainly would like to manage someday. After that came various stories reporting that he might be under consideration for other openings. And who is one of the few managers to win pennants in both leagues? Yogi.
So, Keith, don’t feel bad. Managerial speculation is as bad as Russell Baker’s “The Great Mentioner,” who “mentions” possible presidential candidates.
I Know little about baseball indeed,but i love the sentence”They gave me eyes but I can’t see”
Ahemm…Keith. Could you reflect on your Dodger predictions please? You were kind enough to do so when they were 11-14. Also, and slightly out of bounds…could you stop gathering all members of a certain uh, silver state under the same umbrella. At least in terms of poultry…
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