The Fan has had a ball this season writing this post every day. I have always wished that I had been a journalist and this outlet at least lets me act like one.

I have been writing every day since March 3, and I think I missed a total of six days during the season. I really appreciate some of you who have become loyal readers. That meant a lot to me. I would like to continue. Any baseball fan knows that the off season can be as much fun as the season. Speculating on what teams do what and reacting to moves that are made are part of the tradition and fun. I want to share that with you.

I want to thank Blogger.com for doing what they do. It's a great service for people like me who have a need to express in ways not normally available. I'm sure there are a lot of really bad blogs out there but there are many more good ones. The baseball blogs I have read have been excellent. The sites that link other baseball blogs are super and hopefully I'll soon figure out how to return the favor.


So...the post-post season begins and the first big bombshell is not from the Yankees but from Boston. The firing of Grady Little seems incredulous at first glance and maybe the second. Here is a guy that took a team that started with no bullpen, only two or three legitimate stars and brought them within five outs of the World Series. And you know what? The Red Sox could have beaten the Marlins.

But Little left Pedro Martinez in the game in the eighth inning when hindsight says he should have removed him. Let's compare this to the Marlins sixth game of the World Series. Josh Beckett has won fourteen games in his MLB career. Until the post season, he had NEVER thrown a complete game. Here he is in Game Six on three days rest and nearly every inning from the sixth inning to the eighth, the Yankees had at least one runner on base. There was no way that his manager was going to take him out of the game. If Beckett had given up a game tying or winning homer with one of those runners on base and the Yankees came back and won the series, should he have gotten fired?

Beckett's manager went with his gut and stayed with what he thought was his best pitcher. He's a hero and just signed on for next year. Little did the same thing and is fired. He is the John McNamarra of his day. Sometimes baseball isn't fair.

Little did stir the pot a little bit to his own demise. Peter Gammons reported that Little wanted guarantees for next year but he was under contract and could have come back without the guarantees but was incensed when he did not receive them (for Gammons' column, see espn.com). Bad move.

But all I can remember as a fan was watching Boston's players hugging each other before they even got to the playoffs. This was a team that came together and played together as no team I've ever watched before. You have to give some of that credit to the manager. Two years ago, during the September 11th tragedy, a much more talented Red Sox team folded quickly because they had no cohesiveness and no respect for each other or anything else. Some of that credit went to the manager and he was fired.

Grady Little deserved another season. He was a good manager who made some colorful choices. That's baseball. Do you think Mike Hargrove would have won 96 games with that team? Enough said.

Oh, and one of the candidates for Little's job is Bud Black. Have you seen a picture of him? Let me just say that he is the spitting image of Grady Little. Weird...very weird.