The baseball season just got a whole lot more interesting, and for that we can thank the Miami Marlins. This generous gift means fans will be glued to Marlins games for the rest of the season, watching what happens when their former general manager and new manager, Dan Jennings, who never played the game on any level, and hasn’t filled out a lineup card since his players were squeezing zits in high school, takes over a dugout filled with burly multi-millionaires.
It is an eye-popping move, the kind of shenanigans we thought we’d never see again in baseball if only because of the way the game is run today: tight, buttoned up, with lots of data fueled decision making. Is it a promotion? Is it a demotion? I have no idea, but one thing that is for sure is that their firing of Mike Redmond and hiring of Jennings is a throwback to a more colorful time in the game.
In May of 1977, Ted Turner, president, general manager and owner of the Atlanta Braves fired his manager Dave Bristol ... for two weeks. Then he hired himself. Turner, always the entertaining eccentric billionaire, claimed to know nothing about the clause which said an owner couldn’t manage the team. He was in the dugout, spitting tobacco while his ballclub lost 2-1 to the Pirates in Pittsburgh, extending the Braves’ losing streak to 17 games. Vern Benson managed the team for a game before Bristol returned just days after his temporary removal.
A year later the New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was putting his own unique brand of pressure on manager Billy Martin, who was in panic mode with his team 10 games behind the Red Sox in the AL East. In July of 1978, Martin resigned and was replaced by Bob Lemon. Just five days later, on Old Timers Day at Yankee Stadium, public address man Bob Sheppard announced to the crowd that Martin would return as their manager for the 1980 season, stunning players, the press and fans. It was the kind of move that earned the era its nickname - “The Bronx Zoo.”
Oh, there’s no doubt about it, this is that kind of move, and decades later it shows the Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria, a New York City-born art dealer, and his front office must have been inspired by the brand of chaos both The Boss and Turner brought to the ballpark - how else can you explain why they booted out Redmond and moved their general manager, into the dugout?
It’s crazy. It’s wild, and it’s fun, precisely because it’s so wild and crazy. In the book and film Moneyball, Oakland’s GM Billy Beane made his contempt for then manager Art Howe crystal clear by feeding decisions into the dugout and undermining his on-field authority. Marlins brass have taken that account one step further – the GM is calling the shots, directly. Not even Beane, who has all the baseball gall in the world has made such a move.
Clearly Jennings, who along with Marlins presidents Dave Sampson and Mike Hill, rudely failed to provide the standard “We want to thank Mike Redmond for his contributions to the team,” line at Monday’s press conference, doesn’t think much about big league managers.
“The one thing I’m certain of: managers do not win games in this league. They can lose them,” said Jennings. “But you do have to have the respect of the players. This game is about the players. I was fortunate enough to learn that at an early age.”
OK, so did you hear that Bruce Bochy, Terry Francona, Mike Scioscia? Nothing you do helps wins games. Not that lineup decision, not that defensive positioning, not that hit and run play, not the way you manage your bullpen. Not the timing of that defensive substitution. None of that contributes to winning in any way. Not at all. Not one tiny little bit. But hey, all you managers out there, you sure can lose games.
It’s true that you do have to have the respect of players, and I’m wondering how they are going to feel about sharing a dugout with a highly respected talent evaluator, who also happened to negotiate their contracts, who could trade or release them at any moment, and is always thinking about how to improve the makeup the team. How is Mat Latos going to feel about rubbing shoulders with the GM that beat him in an offseason arbitration ruling, draining dollars from his pocket?
Talk about awkward. Is there anything about this move that isn’t?
Spare a thought for the poor, abused Marlins fan, who’s been on a roller coaster ride since the team came into the league in 1993, one that’s picked up speed since Loria took over the reins. Sure, it’s going to be a buzz for us to watch how this all breaks down in the coming months, to see if Jennings can somehow, someway, kickstart a fire that Giancarlo Stanton (who has now played under seven skippers) declared wasn’t there back in mid-April. Meanwhile, I’d imagine more fatalistic Marlins fans are up in the attic looking for their old paper-bag masks.
All they wanted was a competitive team to watch, but what they got was a 16-22 start, a controversial fire/hire and Major League Baseball’s most compelling sideshow - one that’s also made them the laughing stock of the league.
