LaMar's gut check: firing Rothschild

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By GARY SHELTON

© St. Petersburg Times, published April 19, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- Late in the evening, alone in his office, he watched the ugliness rise again. It was then Chuck LaMar felt something deep in his gut.

If you have watched the Rays lately, you probably understand. The only surprise is that somehow LaMar managed to separate it from the nausea and the forming ulcers.

It was time, he decided.

Larry Rothschild had to go.

On the field, the Rays were in the middle of losing, again, by a lopsided margin, again, with players who went through the motions, again. They sludged around the field, again, and they wore the faces of pallbearers, again, and they showed why they are in last place, again.

And so it is that as you write the final chapter on Larry Rothschild, the question is not why. The question is why now.

Once again the timing of this team remains its most befuddling characteristic. Remember, the entire world expected Rothschild to be fired last October, when the Rays finished their third straight season in last place. After all, in the business of winning, who survives three straight years of last place? What other team would have brought Rothschild back for more?

Ah, but the Rays knew better. The Rays stayed the course.

For 14 games.

And no more.

It turns out that at 485 games, it wasn't fair to judge Rothschild. At 499, the information was all in. What? Did the team require two weeks' notice? Bringing Rothschild back to watch 14 more games of this team -- and all the errors and all the furor and all the slop -- wasn't just wrong. It was cruel.

Why now? "It was a feeling im my gut," LaMar explained.

Why not then? "It was a gut feeling," LaMar explained.

And there you have it. Feel free to decide for yourself if the mistake was then or now, and if it was astronomical or gastronomical.

Look, it is difficult to build a fort in defense of Rothschild. He lost too many games, and he lost too many veterans along the way. He was a man driven by the details, so much so he tended to micromanage, so much so that his players found it difficult to relax around him.

Oh, go ahead. You could argue that Rothschild never had a chance. You could argue that there is not a manager in funny pants who could win with this team. You could argue that his players failed him more than the other way around. But even for those of us who would point out that Rothschild was not the man who led this team into this mess, there is no evidence he was the man to lead it out, either. We never saw that natural charisma the great managers seem to have. Given that, why not change the face, the chemistry, of the club?

All of that is true.

On the other hand, all of that was true in October, too.

Think about it. If LaMar had made this decision in October, the field of potential managers would have been much larger. Lou Piniella's name, for one, comes to mind. Maybe you can think of a couple of others who might have sold a couple of tickets. And even if LaMar had hired Hal McRae then, McRae would have had all spring training to make his own impressions and evaluations of his team.

"I think the popular thing, the easy thing, would have been to make a change in October," LaMar said. "But I didn't want to make a change for the sake of making a change. I didn't think it was the right time."

Fourteen games later, it was.

"Sometimes, life doesn't work according to the calendar," LaMar said. "Or even for the best interests of a baseball club. That's a decision I get paid to make."

Sometimes, however, LaMar takes too long to make them. There has been a willy-nilly look to this team this year, what with the dumping of a second baseman after six games and a third baseman after nine and a manager after 14. But if there has been a mistake, it hasn't been that LaMar gave the Rays too little time this season; it has been that he gave them extra time from the last one.

It is the natural order of things that the scrutiny now turns to LaMar's job. Criticism travels uphill, and so the microscope will shift from Rothschild to LaMar. As it should. As much as all of us will rush out to wish luck to McRae, it should be noted that Rothschild's firing did not make runners run faster or pitchers throw harder. This is still a bad ballclub.

At one point, LaMar was asked if he thought his job was in jeopardy. What followed was a stirring oratory in which LaMar spent half the time admitting his mistakes and the other half bristling at those of us who have pointed them out.

Then he was talking about Rothschild again, the first manager he hired, the first he fired, and his voice grew soft.

"The true sadness for me is not in making the decision," he said. "That was tough. But it's the knowledge that some of the personnel decisions I made handcuffed the organization and his ability."

When LaMar spoke, it sounded as if it came from the heart. Of course, it could have been his gut.

The more I see of the Rays, the more mine talks to me.

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