BASEBALL Brewers select Ned Yost as new manager

Only two managerial jobs are still open in the major leagues -- Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The Milwaukee Brewers have turned to a player from their glorious past to guide them into the future.
Only, it's not Paul Molitor, Robin Yount or Cecil Cooper.
It's Ned Yost, a backup catcher in Milwaukee in the early 1980s who has spent the last dozen years as a coach for the Atlanta Braves.
General manager Doug Melvin admits Yost wasn't even in the picture last month when he began compiling a list of candidates to replace Jerry Royster, fired after the Brew Crew finished a franchise-worst 56-106 last season.
But the 47-year-old Yost called his old agent, Alan Hendricks, and asked him to tell Melvin of his interest in the job.
Yost, who had never interviewed for a major league managerial position, knew he was a long shot from the start. But he also trusted that his passion would sway Melvin, who took over the Brewers' GM job in a front-office shakeup last month.
"Really, I wanted this interview more than anything," Yost said Tuesday. "I didn't know how I was going to get it. Everybody that I knew tried to get word to somebody here: Please give me an opportunity to interview."
Made interest known
Yost said when the Braves played Milwaukee last season, he grabbed Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker and asked him to tell Wendy Selig-Prieb, then the club's president, that he'd be interested in managing them.
"I was just doing everything that I could to get the interview and finally late in the year after Jerry got fired and I read on the Internet that Doug was going to interview, I was just praying that my name would come up," Yost said. "And I didn't see my name anywhere."
That's when he enlisted Hendricks.
"I felt all along that if I could get the opportunity to interview that I would stand a real good chance of getting the job," Yost said. "Because I understand Milwaukee a little bit. I was here during the heyday.
"I've been with a winning club the last 11 years. I know what it takes to win. And I want to be a part of the excitement that's about to happen here in Milwaukee."
Macha officially named
Also Tuesday, Ken Macha officially got the job in Oakland.
Just two managing jobs remain open, the Chicago Cubs and Seattle Mariners, while San Francisco and Dusty Baker are still undecided about working out a new contract. Seven new managers have been hired since the end of the regular season.
Macha, who had been Oakland's bench coach, replaced Art Howe, who left to become manager of the New York Mets.
"You're talking about a guy with a civil engineering degree," A's general manager Billy Beane said. "He's very organized, very structured. I think Kenny's one of those guys who's matter-of-fact and easy to communicate with. He also addresses things, both good and bad."
Beane was certain Macha would leave the A's to become manager of another team.
He said the framework of a contract was in place with the Brewers before Howe left.
"I don't know who controls all this stuff," Macha said. "[Maybe] a 1,000-one shot it all happened this way."
Macha spent four years as a manager in the Boston organization before joining the A's as a bench coach before the 1999 season.