White Sox Fire Manager Jerry Manuel

[TexasStooge]

CHICAGO - Jerry Manuel was fired Monday as manager of the Chicago White Sox.

Manuel was a casualty of unmet expectations after the team missed the playoffs for a third straight year. The talent-laden White Sox led the AL Central by two games on Sept. 9, but slumped and finished four games back.

Manuel was 500-471 in six seasons, the fourth-most wins for a White Sox manager. Chicago was .500 or better in each of the last four seasons, and finished below second place only once under Manuel, in 2001.

The White Sox won the AL Central in 2000, earning Manuel the AL Manager of the Year award. But Chicago was swept by Seattle in the playoffs and hasn't been back to the postseason since.

"I understand the industry. I understand the business," Manuel said after Chicago's home finale Wednesday. "I'm not in this thing blindfolded."

Manuel had one season left on the four-year extension he signed in 2001.

The White Sox were considered heavy favorites to win the AL Central this year after adding Bartolo Colon and Billy Koch in the offseason. They had a formidable pitching staff, and the most high-powered offense in the division with Frank Thomas, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Lee and Paul Konerko.

But the White Sox got off to a dismal start and were 8 1/2 games back by the first week of June.

Konerko hit just .197 in the first half and had only 17 RBIs through June. Mark Buehrle, Chicago's most successful pitcher the previous two seasons, went 12 starts without a win, losing nine straight decisions from April 20 to June 11.

Colon had a career-best nine complete games, but he wasn't the 20-game winner he was last year. Koch lost his closer's job in July after blowing four saves and going 5-5 with a 5.55 ERA.

The White Sox rallied, though, enough to convince general manager Kenny Williams to trade for Roberto Alomar and Carl Everett. And by Aug. 20, Chicago was in first place.

"If you come back from (8 1/2) games, you start feeling like you can do anything," Thomas said last week. "Then you see your whole season fall apart in three games. It's a bad taste."

Though the White Sox built a two-game lead over Minnesota, they lost the last two games of a critical four-game series against the Twins in Chicago in mid-September. The following week, they got swept in a three-game series at Minnesota.

The White Sox may have been alive mathematically, but their season was all but over. They lost 10 of their next 15, and finished second to the Twins, four games back.

"I feel we've had some of the most talented teams in baseball the last several years, but it just hasn't worked out," Williams said Sunday. "And I don't question the heart in the clubhouse one bit. (But) we haven't always been the most focused club this year, as evidenced by our record against last-place teams."

Chicago was 11-8 against both the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians.

While players insisted Manuel wasn't to blame for their shortcomings, he did make some questionable decisions.

After the White Sox won the first two games of a three-game series at Yankee Stadium in early September, Buehrle lobbied to pitch the finale. Manuel chose to go with rookie Neal Cotts, and the Yankees teed off on him.

Cotts gave up five runs in the first inning, managing just one out against eight batters as the Yankees won 7-5. Making matters worse, Buehrle lost at Detroit the next night.

And in that big home series against the Twins, the White Sox were leading 8-2 in the ninth inning of the second game when Manuel decided to bring in Jose Paniagua, who hadn't pitched in the major leagues in a year.

Paniagua gave up four runs, three hits and a walk in just one-third of an inning. The White Sox won the game 8-6, but the Twins, buoyed by the rally, took the next two games.

"When you don't win the World Series, you're going to get criticized," Sandy Alomar Jr. said. "You can be one out away, and if you don't win it, you're going to be criticized. That goes with every sport and every manager and every city. Not just here in Chicago."

Hired in November 1997 after serving as bench coach for the World Series champion Florida Marlins, Manuel was well-liked by his players. A laid-back sort who read Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr., he wasn't the sort to rant and rave or get in his players' faces.

But he wasn't a pushover, either. He had a highly-publicized screaming match with Thomas during spring training in 2000 after the slugger refused to participate in a running drill because of a foot injury.

The two made amends, but their relationship was lukewarm, at best. Still, Thomas didn't want to see Manuel go.

"You can't point the finger at anybody," Thomas said. "It's just one of those things. We didn't get it done."

[JCT777]

Manuel should have been given another season. I think he did an OK job.