Local heroes as managers

In yesterday's Daily Herald, columnist Mike Imrem made a good point while arguing it was a good thing the Bears didn't hire Mike Singletary as their head coach:

Two rules apply to being a boss: One is never hire someone who wants your job; two is never hire someone who would be difficult to fire.

Singletary would fit that second category here. So for that matter would Ryne Sandberg.

Tom Ricketts and Jim Hendry aren't saying what they really think of Sandberg as a future Cub manager, but he seems on a course back toward Wrigley Field.

Nobody can be certain how good a major-league manager Sandberg would be. But if he stunk, well, how difficult would it be to dispose of someone as popular around Wrigley Field as he is?

My goodness, the guy's retired number hangs from a foul pole in Wrigley Field.

Without looking, this opinion sure passes the smell test to me. If nothing else, firing such a former local hero turned head coach/manager would be messier than dumping a forgettable failed leader. That said, I couldn't help but notice one oddity: the best counter example to this also comes from Chicago. The current White Sox manager is former All-Star shortstop and fan favorite Ozzie Guillen. That hiring worked out pretty well.

More than that, the column got me wondering what examples are there of a high-profile player managing his former team in MLB. Is it true they're harder to fire?

Here are the most recent examples I found:

Local Heroes Turned Managers

Here they are from most recent hire on backwards:

2008: Yanks hire Joe Girardi: Ah, he really doesn't count. Sure he played for some pennant winners in New York, but he's just Joe Girardi. He was a role player, not a star. I only include him here just to give an idea where the cut-off is --- somewhere damn well higher than Girardi.

2004: White Sox hire Ozzie Guillen: When I was a kid growing up in the Chicago area in the 1980s, he was one of the most popular Sox in town. He's now survived six seasons, despite his, eh, shall we say "colorful" public statements. I think his reputation as a player has helped him survive his controversies, as he had his backers from Day One.

That said, the Sox have never been put in any position where they'd have to even consider firing him. Winning the club's first pennant in nearly a half-century and first world title since the heyday of Woodrow Wilson helps job security regardless of who he used to play for.

2004: Astros hire Phil Garner: Well, I think of him as an Astro because I started collecting cars in the early 1980s, by which time he played in Houston. Then again, his best years were in Pittsburgh. I don't remember much made of his former Houston connection when the team hired him as skipper, but then again I don't follow the Houston press at all. His record doesn't show he got any extra love from the club just because he used to play there. Despite taking them to their first pennant, the team dumped him when things went south.

2003: Giants hired Felipe Alou: This one counts, sort of. Alou was a prominent Giant outfielder for a half-dozen years who made an All-Star game with the squad. He wasn't as good as Ryne Sandberg, but he sure as hell was better than Joe Girardi.

That said, he stopped playing for the Giants 40 years before returning as their manager. By 2003, most fans had no memory of him with the squad, and the stories about the 1960s Giants they knew were focused on Mays, Marichal, and McCovey, not Alou. He didn't get much slack from the team, but that's due to the time difference between his departure and return.

Tigers hire Alan Trammell: I'm sure it helps a manager if he used to be all-star player for the team he runs. That said, when you lose 119 games in your rookie season as skipper, that good will dries up mighty quick. Maybe Trammell's former shortstop days explain why he lasted all of three years.

2001: Philly hires Larry Bowa: The redass was a long time fan favorite, which allowed him to get hired here even though he failed miserably in his only previous managerial stint with the Padres in the late 1980s.

His experience belies Imrem's idea. Bowa helped the Phillies rise up in 2001, but the franchise dumped him after four years despite a 337-308 winning record. The team got sick of spinning its wheels instead of moving forward. That's a common reason to fire a manager, but it doesn't look like Bowa got much slack here.

1996: Reds hire Ray Knight: Whatever good will Knight had was largely ruined by the odd way he was hired. Team owner Marge Schott had promised him a job, and she was going to fulfill that promise even though Davey Johnson had just led them to back-to-back first place finishes. Knight was shown the door in short order after things went south.

1993: Reds hire Tony Perez: I really don't know what happened here. Perez began the year as manager, but left after 44 games. Whatever can be said, his association with the Big Red Machine surely didn't buy him any extra time on the job.

1991: Indians hire Mike Hargrove: I really don't know how big a star Hargrove was with the Indians, but he was a good hitter for them for a stretch when they weren't very good. You really can't say his playing days helped him on this job given that the team fired him right after winning his fifth consecutive division title in 1999.

1991: Royals hire Hal McRae: He was there for about four campaigns (a little less, as he was a mid-season hire), but left after back-to-back winning seasons. They've only had 1 winning season since then.

1990: Mets hire Bud Harrelson: Wait - Bud Harrelson makes this list? Well, he did make two All-Star games for the team and is still second all-time in games played for the Mets. That said, he lasted less than 280 games as manager.

Actually, hiring Harrelson goes against the main Met tradition - hiring guys well known for their work with other New York franchises as their managers. They had former Yankee players Willie Randolph and Yogi Berra, legendary Yankee skipper Casey Stengel, and former Brooklyn Dodger Gil Hodges. I don't think any of those guys got much extra slack though. Hodges died a few years after winning their first pennant and Berra was canned not too long after leading them to their second October. Randolph lost his job shortly after blowing a seemingly easy post-season opportunity, and Stengel retired after injuring himself.

1990: St. Louis hires Joe Torre: It's hard to think of him as anything but a Yankee these days, but he played for the Cardinals for five years, winning the 1971 MVP Award in that stretch. The team was willing to keep him after a bad season, but as soon as they had back-to-back rotten campaigns his days were numbered.

1988: Baltimore hires Frank Robinson: Robinson won the Triple Crown for the 1966 club that won the franchise's first world title. In six seasons playing in Baltimore, he made five All-Star games while the O's won four pennants.

It doesn't look like that helped him much as a player. He took over an Orioles team in the midst of an AL-record losing streak in 1987. They won lost 107 games that year (101 on his watch), but came in second place in 1988. He lost his job early in 1990 anyway.

1986: Yanks hire Lou Piniella: Steinbrenner's hired a bunch of former Yankees as manager - most notably five stints with Billy Martin. The volatile Martin really wasn't a good enough player to qualify for this list, but Piniella was a hard-hitting platoon player for them for a dozen years.

Piniella managed them for two seasons - both of which were successful for New York - but the team fired him anyway. He actually came back for half a season after that, but it was only half a season. His days as a player didn't buy him any lead time. Then again, owner George Steinbrenner was widely known for his willingness to fire his managers.

1984: Yanks hire Yogi Berra: He's one of the most revered of all Yankees. He led the team to an 87-75 record, but was fired 16 games into the following season. Sure, they were 6-10, but that's sudden. Clearly, being a former Yankee great didn't help with George Steinbrenner.

There was an epilogue to this, as Berra held a grudge for a while against his boss. Normally no one would care, but because it was Yogi Berra and the Yanks, it got some attention. That's the danger of hiring then firing a former great - but so far that seems to be the extent of the danger.

1984: Reds hire Pete Rose: They never had a chance to fire him as the commissioner got him first. That said, please note this is the third manager hired by Marge Schott on this list.

1978: St. Louis hires Ken Boyer: He lasted barely over two seasons despite being a former MVP third baseman for the squad. Admittedly, the team got off to a terrible start in 1980, but sometimes managers survive such lousy openings. His fame as a Cardinal player didn't help him keep his job.

1965: St. Louis hires Red Schoendienst: Did they fire him or just give him another job in the organization? He's been with the Cardinals seemingly forever in one role or another, including two interim stints (which I didn't list above because they were obviously just interim stints). Being a famous Cardinal player was the first step in his becoming the team's de facto mascot.

1964: Yanks hire Yogi Berra: This was a weird one. The team won the pennant with him, and then fired him anyway. His playing days didn't help him.

1961: Washington hires Mickey Vernon: Technically, this shouldn't count as Vernon never played for this club. Instead, he played for the original AL Senators, who moved to Minnesota in 1961. Still, his hiring was clearly an attempt by the expansion team to get some attention. He only lasted two and a quarter dismal seasons.

1951: A's hire Jimmy Dykes: He's the guy that replaced Connie Mack. They had a winning record under him in 1952, but fired him after 1953 anyway - that made him the first fired manager in franchise history.

1942: Giants hire Mel Ott: He was a player-manager, so it wasn't former prestige but existing prestige. Also, the team may have had to trade him to get rid of him. At any rate, being Mel Ott the player must have helped him remain as Mel Ott the manager, because he survived two different last place finishes. For context, the club had only two other last place finishes in their previous 40 seasons.

1942: Cleveland hires Lou Boudreau: He was another player-manager. Like Ott, his playing helped him keep his job. Bill Veeck, in Veeck as in Wreck, said he wanted to dump Boudreau at one point, but couldn't do to fan support for the star shortstop.

Summing up

Around here, the concept starts breaking down as player-managers add an extra element to the equation that doesn't apply to the modern day game.

Still, what surprises me is how little these managers are helped by being former star players for their teams. They get fired no matter what. If anything, I'd say more of them are fired unusually quickly rather than held on a bit too long.

Perhaps there's a selection bias at work: you're not going to hire someone like this unless you really think well of him, or if you're someone like George Steinbrenner who really doesn't care about criticism you might get for firing.

Another possibility is most of these guys aren't really good comps for Hall of Famers like Ryne Sandberg or (switching sports for a second) Mike Singletary. I highly doubt Mickey Vernon's reputation was quite as strong in Washington as Sandberg's is in Chicago.

There's another angle at this, though. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these guys only got the job in the first place because of who they were rather than what they were capable of. In that case, critics would exist from the time of their initial hiring, and would quickly multiple in numbers when things went wrong. Thus a lot of these guys could be fired rather easily.

My hunch is that the last point is the main factor explaining this. In other words, my thought at the top of the article might not be right. Being a popular player doesn't mean you'll be more difficult to fire because if you don't produce people won't want you around anyway. When you put it that way, the results here shouldn't be as surprising to me as they are.