Charlie Manuel still a winner
Everybody who has been watching the Phillies’ accelerating downspiral over the last couple of seasons knows this is not Charlie Manuel's fault.
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None of this is Charlie Manuel's fault, of course. Everybody who has been watching the Phillies' accelerating downspiral over the last couple of seasons knows that. It does not need to be said because it is that obvious, but days like this are as much for making a complete record as they are for the obvious reckoning.
A lousy baseball team -- a lousy baseball team whose construction he has had very little to do with -- has rolled over, and Manuel's only fault is that he happened to be the one sitting in the office when the roof collapsed.
I feel bad for the guy because Manuel is a good man who was good at what he did. For everyone who spent their life nitpicking his strategic moves, this will be a happy time. But for anyone who has ever spent any time around a professional sports franchise, and who understands -- especially in baseball -- how much the human side of it, the people-management side of it, really means, this is a much harder day.
Because Charlie Manuel really was a good manager of people. And he really was a great student of the game. Anybody who sat and talked with him always tended to learn something. One of his pet sayings -- "watch the game" -- told you everything you needed to know. Manuel watched the games. Very little got by him. He understood hitters, and he understood struggling young players, and he understood the way you treat a veteran trying to gimp his way through an injury.
Manuel knew, more than anything, how hard the game is, and how humbling it is. . . .