Friday, October 31, 2003
The team said it was not entirely based on Boston missing the World Series.
BOSTON (AP) -- If only Grady Little had pulled Pedro Martinez sooner, or Boston's bullpen had blown the lead in the playoffs instead of its ace. Or maybe if the ball hadn't rolled through Bill Buckner's legs or cleared the Green Monster off of Bucky Dent's bat, it might be OK for a manager to take the Red Sox to the doorstep of the World Series.
And then maybe Little would still have a job.
Instead, the Red Sox dismissed Little on Monday, less than two weeks after he left his tiring ace in too long against the New York Yankees and probably cost the team a chance to play in the World Series for its first championship since 1918. Little wasn't fired -- he was sent off with kind words and a $250,000 bonus but without a new contract to replace the one that expires Friday.
Parting of the ways
The Red Sox said that the parting of the ways, as they called it, was not solely based on what happened in Game 7 of the AL championship series. Owner John Henry has had lingering doubts about whether Little was the right person to lead the team as it came to rely more on statistics to determine strategy.
Henry held his peace, at least publicly, for most of the season.
"He's a very collaborative person who's not going to issue fiats from on high -- as might be done in some organizations," Lucchino said, taking another in a series of shots at Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. "This is not an organization that makes decisions of this importance based on one event."
Still, Lucchino conceded that it would have been difficult to let Little go if he had made the World Series -- and impossible if he had won it.
"It would have been ungrateful in the extreme," he said.
Wanted team's complete support
Lucchino and general manager Theo Epstein said that Little bristled at the idea of coming back for another year with no security beyond the 2004 season. He asked for the team's complete support, and a long-term contract that would demonstrate it.
"It became clear after a lengthy discussion that Grady was not going to have 100 percent support," Epstein said. "Once that question was answered, the other answer was clear."
Red Sox officials called Little at his home in North Carolina on Monday morning and told him of their decision. He took it well, and both sides continued to compliment each other even as they parted ways.
The team released a statement from Little in which he thanked the team for the opportunity to manage in the majors and stressed his accomplishments over two years in which he won 93 and 95 games.
Successors mentioned
Epstein and Lucchino declined to discuss Little's possible successors, but Jim Fregosi, Bud Black, Glenn Hoffman, Charlie Manuel, Bobby Valentine and Jerry Remy have been mentioned as candidates.
"There will be a lot of Grady Little in our next manager," Lucchino said. "We want to have a greater balance among the tools that can be used to make a franchise successful, and we will seek to fine tune that balance as we go forward. This is not going to be a stat-geeks organization, nor is it going to be an organization run by old, salty-dog baseball traditionalists."