You Will Know Him as Interim

Let's pretend for a moment that I'm Ben Cherington. Here's the speech I give to my manager finalists.

"The offer, if I make the offer, is for two years. The reason is simple. Normally, a manager canned during the season is replaced by an interim guy, and one canned after the season is fully replaced. But let's be honest, I'm new in this job, and we're still figuring out what we want.

"The Yankees, their timing was right for Girardi. After years of Torre getting too fond and too forgiving of his players, and the Boss fading from his old terrible self, Joe Girardi was the perfect hardass to walk into that dugout. Here, in 2004, we knew Terry Francona was our guy -- ready for the new approach, and a player psychologist. Joe Kerrigan might have been able to roll with that, but we didn't think so. We wanted our guy.

"Some of us want a whip-cracker. Some want to provoke nausea among the players, like Alex in Clockwork Orange, if they so much as think about beer and fried chicken. But you know what? We're calm. We're data guys. This town loved Dick Williams, but he never won a ring. Francona won two. We also know these players, and some of them will just ignore a disciplinarian. It's balance. Managerial discipline, like our batters' plate discipline.

"Let's not forget the PR angle. We're not sure an executioner would fly around here. We think about these things. We're not the Evil Empire.

"Finally we have cash to experiment with. If I guarantee you two years and fire you after six months, no problem. All I have to do is say you didn't mesh with our approach.

"You still want the job? OK, we'll be in touch."