Yesterday afternoon, I was listening to the Klatt and Kreckman Show on Mile High Sports Radio/AM 1510 when the conversation turned to an item just put online by the Denver Post: To wit, Colorado Rockies manager Clint Hurdle hadn't been fired yet.
That the Post considers a non-event to be news should be funny -- but in this case, it most certainly isn't. With the glorious exception of the 2007 season, when the Rockies went to the World Series, Hurdle has overseen one mediocre campaign after another. Check out his record in the image below:
Granted, virtually no one believes that Hurdle is solely responsible for the Rockies' persistent lameness; the Monfort brothers and general manager Dan O'Dowd deserve plenty of blame, too. But Hurdle's teams have underachieved far more often than they've gone in the other direction, and if the Rockies organization wants to pretend that it's interested in building a consistent winner, as opposed to waiting for another fluke, they've got to do something.
Of course, Hurdle has dodged a fusillade of bullets in the past. If he'd helmed any other team, he probably would have been put out of his misery in 2004, if not earlier. So he could certainly survive another terrible homestand this weekend against the San Diego Padres. But a time when the main story on the Rockies' website concerns the team's lousy record at Coors Field, the idea of watching poor Clint twist in the wind days or weeks into the future has got to be as unpleasant a prospect for managment as it is for fans.
Almost.
