Idiots Write About Sports

From my perspective as a neutral observer embedded in Southern California last season, Jim Tracy didn’t exactly cover himself with glory in his final season with the Dodgers. While many things contributed to Los Angeles’ poor 71-91 record — questionable roster construction, gambles that didn’t pay off, and injuries, oh God, the injuries — Tracy spent the better part of the season making sure that, whatever the reasons for the Dodgers’ failure, you didn’t think they had anything to do with him. The Los Angeles press corps, eager to demonize Paul DePodesta even if the facts didn’t necessarily support their witch hunt, was eager to play along. And so, Tracy escaped from Los Angeles relatively unscathed, which is a pretty neat trick for a guy who refused to play Hee Sop Choi at the offense-intensive first base position in favor of Jason Phillips, a sub-mediocrity of a backup catcher who predictably put up a .650 OPS.

Now, Jim Tracy is in Pittsburgh where, freed from the tyranny of a general manager who cares about such triffles as stats, he can remake the Pirates in his image and teach them to play baseball the way it was meant to be played, by gawd!

So, two months into the season, how are things working out in Pittsburgh? Uh… not well, if a story headlined “Tracy blames Bucs’ worst start in 52 years on players” is anything to go by.

“I can’t catch it, I can’t throw it and I can’t hit it,” Tracy said. “That’s not my job. I’m not allowed to do that. My job is to get them in a position to where the stage is set and the opportunity is there for them to carry it out, finish the job and win.”

The Pirates are 15-33 after Friday night’s home win over Houston, a pace far worse than that of their 92-loss season a year ago. The Pirates haven’t started so poorly since they were 11-36 en route to a 53-101 record in 1954. The 2001 team that lost 100 games was 15-32 after 47 games.

Tracy, the Dodgers’ manager in the previous five seasons, was hired after Lloyd McClendon became the first manager in Pirates history to have five consecutive losing seasons. But the Pirates have shown no appreciable improvement under Tracy and are well on their way to a 14th consecutive losing season. The major-league record is 16 by the Phillies.

“I know as a manager there are only so many things I can do,” Tracy said. “I try to go home and every night and look in the mirror and ask myself if I did everything I could to do to give us a chance to win.”

Them’s words of inspiration there, Tracy — “None of this is my fault.” I bet your players will be firing off an eight-game winning streak any day now.

Now, Ozzie Guillen did cover himself in glory last year. You might have read something about a World Series that the White Sox won, and, as much as a manager can affect these things, Ozzie deserves his share of the credit. I like the way he uses a bullpen, and his propensity to say silly things, while irritating to non-Sox personnel, doesn’t seem to bother his players any.

Indeed, after last year’s success, the Sox have ordered more of the same. As of this writing, they are 32-17, winning games at a .653 clip. Only an unbelievably hot start by Detroit prevents the White Sox from having the very best record in all of Major League Baseball. In the last week, Chicago handed the A’s their heads in a three-game sweep before dropping a pair of games to a pretty decent Blue Jays team.

Run for the hills! Ozzie is angry!

“If they want to be a bad team, they can continue to do that, I’ll play somebody else. I don’t care who they are and what they do. My job is to try and win games and that’s what I’m going to do. If they don’t like what I say, they can leave and do whatever they want to do.”

32-17, Ozzie.

There’s certainly something to be said with never being satisfied with your past successes. I wrote as much the other day, and one of my persistent irritations with Ken Macha is his tendency to coo soothing banalities in the midst of a horrible losing streak.

But good lord, Ozzie… more talk like that and they’re going to find you in the Comiskey clubhouse with 25 separate stab wounds in your back.

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