Cook: Finding Mr. Right won't be easy for Pirates
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If it has been said once during the Pirates' slow, steady, painful march to 100 losses in an 18th consecutive season of losing, it has been said hundreds of times.
"They need to fire Russell and bring in a 'name' manager!"
Please.
Let me clarify that:
Firing John Russell is fine. Put the man out of his misery. It's the humanitarian thing to do. But getting a proven manager to come work for the Pirates? For owner Bob Nutting?
Please.
Russell already might have been fired and Pirates management isn't telling us. Even by the franchise's miserable standards, this season has been a joke, "an embarrassment to the city, to the Pittsburgh Pirates and to our fan base," according to team president Frank Coonelly, who added the team is "underperforming."
Russell can't survive that, even though Coonelly picked up his contract option for 2011 in October and didn't get around to announcing it until mid-June.
No manager could survive that.
One of this city's great sports mysteries is how Russell got the Pirates' job in the first place. Something must have made Coonelly leave their interview, rush to Nutting and scream, "We've found our guy! This is the man we have to have!" But what? Please, tell me. What?
Russell's strategical brilliance? Haven't seen much of that.
His communication skills with the players? Not good, I hear.
His passion for the game and fire in the dugout? Yeah, right.
The fact he was willing to work cheap? Surely with Nutting, that was a factor, but there are other young managers who would work for nothing to have the chance to run a big league team. I know it's a reach to describe the Pirates as a big league organization a lot of days, but they are one of 30, you know?
We probably never will know why Russell was hired. All that's certain is that he has failed miserably. The Pirates took a 41-84 record into their game against the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday night and were 170-278 in his nearly three full seasons on the job.
Casey Stengel couldn't survive that mind-numbing losing.
Russell shouldn't feel too badly, though.
Better managers have crashed and burned here.
The Pirates have tried just about everything to get the right guy since Jim Leyland -- as good a manager as there is -- left after the '96 season. They hired Leyland disciple Gene Lamont, who failed. They hired Lamont disciple Lloyd McClendon, who failed. They hired "name" manager Jim Tracy, who failed. Then, almost comically it seems now, they hired Russell, their former third-base coach, whom they didn't retain when McClendon was fired late in the '05 season.
First Published August 25, 2010 12:00 am
