[youtalkfunny]

(Crossposted from another site)

OMG, this is incredible.

I'm reading The Sports Guy's book right now, and JUST LAST NIGHT I got to the "Grady in the 2003 postseason" section. WATFO (What Are the Freaking Odds)???

Game 5 vs Oakland in the ALDS: Up by three in the bottom of the sixth, Grady brings in a defensive replacement for his #3 hitter--Damian Jackson for Todd Walker, a 15% upgrade at best. It's like watching The Handler instead of Hack on CBS; you're not really making or breaking your Friday night either way. More importantly, IT'S THE SIXTH FREAKING INNING! As (my friend) Hench says, "I've watched probably 500 baseball games this year. I've watched baseball all my life. And never, not once, have I seen a defensive replacement in the sixth inning. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON???"

Both of us know instantly: This is coming back to haunt us. Either Jackson screws up a double play, or his spot comes up in a big at-bat. Something's going to happen. It's too dumb, too illogical. It's the Mike Hargrove Corollary: when a manager makes an indefensibly moronic move, that move always rears its ugly head in the end...well, unless you're Davey Johnson. In the playoffs, you shouldn't deviate from what you've been doing all season, unless it's an emergency or someone is trapped under something. When you start panicking, that's when you get into trouble. You don't take out your #3 hitter in the sixth inning, not with this bullpen. End of story.

(Now we're waiting for the other shoe to drop...)

Fast-forward to the seventh: 4-2, Jermaine Dye pops one into shallow center, Johnny Damon scurries under it...and here comes Jackson, and he won't stop running...and SPLAT! A sickening collision of heads, shades of Vinnie Johnson and Adrian Dantley in that Pistons-Celtics playoff game. Somehow, Nomar (the good sense to back up the play) and Bill Mueller (the good sense to cover the base) combine to nail Dye at second, yet another baserunning blunder by the A's (five in three games). But the carnage is immeasurable. We lose our leadoff hitter--poor Damon gets carried off on one of those depressing stretchers, the ones they should use in Vegas after a gambler gets demolished by a blackjack dealer. Damian Jackson remains in the game, woozy and a little disoriented, which gives him something in common with his manager. The team loses momentum, and then some. And Pedro has to endure a 10-minute delay, plus Boston's round of at-bats, before he returns for the eighth.

Now Hench and I are dying. We're dying. We spend 10 minutes trying to remember if anyone won the World Series with an incompetent manager, finally taking solace that it happened with Arizona and Bob Brenly just two years ago. Of course, Grady isn't done: he pinch-runs for Ortiz in the top of the ninth, meaning Grady has managed to eliminate our first, third, and fifth batters from the game--a game destined for extra innings, no less. Just an unbelievable run for Grady Little this week. He did everything but order the tiger to attack Roy....

(skip to the final out of the game, when the Grady bashing continues)

Derek Lowe came through. After Ramon Hernandez bunted the runners over and Grady moved the infield in--you know, just so any grounder could get through for the winning run--Lowe whiffed the backup catcher on an unhittable sinker. He pitched around Chris Singleton to load the bases, Grady moved the outfield back toward the fence so any single would win the game...and then Lowe whiffed the always atrocious Terrence Long on that same nasty sinker. Piece of cake. Never a doubt.

And remember, all that criticism of the Sox manager was written by a Sox fan on the night they won a playoff series. As you can imagine, it got worse in the next week or so, when Grady single-handedly gave the ALCS to the Yankees, culminating in Little's refusal to yank a spent Pedro Martinez in the 8th, no matter how ineffective he was.

The chapter "Funeral For A Friend" is a collection of reader e-mails that ran a few days after that all-time managerial boner:

Am I too young to have historical perspective, or is Grady Little the worst manager in the history of postseason baseball?
--Marin, Cambridge MA

At least the Grady Little Era is over.
--Frank M, Pittsfield MA

I guess Grady was saving his bullpen for Game 8.
--Steve M, Baltimore

What was a worse managerial decision: Duke and Rocky letting Apollo face Drago in the second round, or Grady letting Pedro face the Yankees in the eighth?
--Jon C, Singapore (notes Simmons, "I'm huge in Singapore)

(from a Yankee fan) As I sat watching the series, and Grady Little in particular, I was often reminded of one of my favorite sports quotes. Bobby Knight, who hated Dale Brown, said after a remarkable Indiana comeback, "I was worried about losing until I looked down the floor and saw Dale Brown. Then I knew we had a chance." That's pretty much what I felt on every shot of Grady Little in the Sox dugout.
--Jim D, Richmond VA

While watching the NFL, my wife once asked me, "Which guy is the quarterback?" She literally knows nothing about sports. Yet last night after the Bernie Williams hit in the eighth, she kept asking, "How come that guy is still pitching?" (Notes Simmons, "Ugh...even though they won the World Series the following year, these e-mails still kill me.")
--Al H, Los Angeles

When I took my girlfriend to Fenway for the first time, on the drive to Boston she asked me who the Green Monster was. I almost crashed into the wooden guardrail on Merritt Parkway...Anyway, on Thursday night she is watching the game with me and before I can even get the words out, even though I am screaming them in my head, she says, "Why are they not taking Pedro out?"
This from a person who seven weeks ago thought the Green Monster was actually a person. Now she even sees that Pedro needed to be pulled. Is this unbelievable or what?
--Greg E, Philadelphia