Orioles gas Perlozzo - Davey Johnson next up?
By The Heckler
Baseball Big Mouth
baseball news
As predicted here, another long year is unfolding in the land of the orange and black Oriole of Baltimore, as the team announced today that it has fired manager Sam Perlozzo. Bullpen coach Dave Trembley has been announced as the interim replacement, with speculation surfacing that former manager Davey Johnson may be on his way back to the bench in Baltimore. Johnson, who guided the Mets to a World Series win in 1986, won 98 games in the second of two successful seasons with the Orioles back in 1996-1997, but feuded with owner Peter Angelos before being fired. He went on to manage two more years in MLB with the Los Angeles Dodgers to lesser success, having been last seen as an active manager in 2000.
Since the separation, however, Johson has said he harbors no hard feelings toward his former boss. “The ill will wasn’t so much [about] getting fired, because I’ve been fired before and that wasn’t an issue. The ill will I harbored is that I did try to do everything in my power to make the Orioles successful and please (Angelos). I did want to do that and I failed at that, but I did give it my best.”
Another name making the rounds is former Florida Marlin (and 2006 Manager of the Year award-winner) Joe Girardi. Currently in a broadcast position with his former team, the New York Yankees, Girardi is thought by team followers to not have the pedigree needed to take the team over the top, as — on a club with no vocal leaders — only a man like Johnson would instantly command respect of underachievers like Miguel Tejada, Melvin Mora and the rest of the sad-sack Orioles.
In a separate move, the club is also expected to announce the hiring of Andy MacPhail as chief operating officer, a position that has been vacant since previous CEO Joe Fosse resigned earlier this year.
Baltimore’s sits today with the fifth worst record in Major League Baseball at 29-40, trailing the first-place Boston Red Sox by 15½ games. Woe to be a Baltimore fan. Where have you gone, John Lowenstein? Oriole-nation turns its lonely eyes to you . . .
