Bowden and Boone Fired
 

Just saw the crawl on ESPN. Dave Miley of AAA will take over as manager. Hopefully this will lead to some fire sale trades in the next week.

From the Cincinnati Enquirer. They really cleaned house. Don't know what Foli did to deserve the gate.

The Reds today fired general manager Jim Bowden, manager Bob Boone, hitting coach Tom Robson and third-base coach Tim Foli.

The Reds made Dave Miley interim manager for the rest of the season. Miley, manager of the Reds' Triple-A farm team at Louisville, is a 23-year veteran of the Reds organization. He will join the team Tuesday.

Bench coach Ray Knight will manage the Reds in this afternoon's game against the Philadelphia Phillies and beginning Tuesday will work as the club's hitting coach and third-base coach. Bullpen catcher Mark Berry will serve as bench coach.

The Reds said they do not expect to hire a new GM or field manage for 2004 until after the World Series.

Miley, 41, becomes the 57th manager in Reds history, the 47th since 1900. In four seasons at Louisville, Miley has compiled a 296-245 record .547).

Miley's career record as a minor league manager is 1,115-841 (.570), and in 1998 he was named the International League's best managerial prospect. He was 1997 IL Manager of the Year at Indianapolis and 1995 Southern League Manager of the Year and Class AA Manager of the Year while at Chattanooga.

Miley signed with the Reds as a catcher and played seven minor league seasons before he became a coach. For most of the last 16 seasons he was a coach, instructor or manager in the club's minor league system. Miley was the bench coach on the Reds staff in 1993 under manager Tony Perez.

Bowden was named general manager in October 1992. During his 11 seasons, the Reds went 829-830 (.499) with one playoff appearance (1995) and finished above .500 four times.

Boone was named manager in November 2000. He went 190-238 (.444) for the Reds, including 66-96 in 2001, 78-84 in 2002 and 46-58 (.442) this season.

Wow, at times it seemed like Bowden was in for life. The last few years of his have just been awful, though, so I'm not surprised.

My first reaction, as usual, is to point a finger at Griffey Jr for whining loud enough for this to happen.

Good for the Reds. This has needed to happen for sometime now.

Aferbobhopesds: Bowden at least really deserved the door. The starters are awful, the team can't hit , especially with runners on, they have no speed, they can't field and they have no big prospects in the minors. The GM has obviously failed to assemble a roster that can contend.

Interesting. It seems like letting Foli go was a cost-cutting move, since Knight will serve as hitting instructor AND 3rd base coach. I guess he's happy to keep a job.

Personally, I wish the Phillies would fire Larry Bowa. It's going to happen sooner or later, and they might as well do it before the team completely implodes. I went to the Phillies/Marlins game Saturday night - 3 errors and a lackluster effort from the Phillies, in the middle of a 3 game sweep by their closest Wild Card competitor. Impressive.

JPhillips: So do nearly half of the other teams in the majors. Griffey is just paying Bowden back for his comments and trade attempts.

Does Griffey really have that kind of sway any more? He's probably not even the 3rd most popular player on the team, and most fans would probably agree that trading him would be best for both the team and him. So why would ownership listen to him?

They don't mention who will be interim-GM for the remainder of the season.. I was interested in seeing who that would be, since it could be a sign of what the team might do the remainder of the year...

ksyrup-you think bowa is the problem with the phillies? i think they have problems but i don't think bowa is the problem

But do you do that while you're still in the race for the wild card? Would that be more of a distraction than a cure?

Bullpen Catcher to Bench Coach... that's a huge promotion...

Anakjryv: I disagree. I used to support Bowden, but as the team moved into the new stadium it was obvious that there was no competent plan to get this team into contention. I think Griffey whines too much, but Bowden made his own bed. This team is at least three to five years away from competing and that's only if they get a GM with a plan. The roster is bad and the minors are worse, that has to fall on the GM.

Wow - Bowden was there for a very long time for a GM that had so little success, especially with an organization that had a history of winning when he took over. Four winning seasons in 11 years is not good.

Griffey this, Boone that, Bowden can't blah blah blah. So and so can't hit. Folks, it's simple-

The Reds have no pitching and ownership has nixed multiple deals over the last few years to aquire any worth a darn.

No pitching=bad baseball team.

Period.

I think Larry Bowa is an ass. His shtick has proven to work to jump start a team for one year, then it falls on deaf ears. He helped to run Rolen out of town last year. I know they are in the lead for the Wild Card, but I don't see them ending up there. I hope they fire him after the season ends, at least.

I appreciate his historical significance as a player (even though he had a career OBP of .300), but I'd prefer to think of him as "history" as the Phillies manager as well!

There are other ways to acquire pitching besides trading. The Reds haven't brought up a good pitcher from the minors in many years. All of our pitching prospects have been marginal at best (recently I'm thinking of Tomko, Jarvis, Nitkowski, Reitsma, etc.). I guess that's more an argument for Bowden than against him, but still....

Whoo Hoo!! A new beginning has begun!!

Now maybe my beloved Reds will begin moving in the right direction.

(fingers crossed)

Rumblings out of Cincy have Tim Naehring as the interim GM - but it doesn't look like any decisions about "permanent" positions will be made until after the World Series.

Butter: Exactly. The last pitcher I can remember that the Reds developed through the system is Williamson and he came up four years ago. Developing one pitcher every four years just isn't good enough.

Guess they are not in any hurry to start rebuilding if they are waiting until after the season to get a GM. No hurry, I guess... :)