Grady Gamble

I can only shake my head at the news that Red Sox sacked manager Grady Little was this morning. Yes, we all know that he made a bad decision to leave in Pedro Martinez during Game 7 of the ALCS. But to fire a good manager for one mistake is a rash and foolhardy move by the Boston front office. The organization (and the entire angry city of Boston) is essentially punishing Little for blowing the Sox's pennant hopes. But here's the problem: by castigating Little with a pink slip, the team will suffer. Little did a great job of getting the Sox to play as a team, placating Manny Ramirez and squeezing 95 wins out of an average pitching rotation. Do the Sox honestly think that there's someone out there who can win 96?

This is exactly what happened with the 49ers. The front office said "Steve Mariucci can't get us far enough. Let's get rid of him!" Problem was, they didn't have any replacement lined up. After months of sifting through mediocre candidates, they settled on retread Dennis Erickson. Every Niner fan, journalist and casual observer knew that Erickson would never be as good as, let alone surpass, Mariucci. Why do sports franchises just assume that getting rid of the current, imperfect guy will automatically make things better?