The sports profession has been big business for decades, but only in the last 15 years has it moved into the status of being comparable with Microsoft.

You all probably agree that professional athletes, namely Major League Baseball players, have been reaping the benefits, which include obscene salaries and other perks that make the man that works ten times as hard for minimum wage cringe. I agree that these men, who on average, run to first base two or three times a game and catch fly balls and grounders every half-hour or so do not deserve to make more than teachers and doctors. However, that’s not the basis for this analysis. Forget the players for a minute and focus on their “leaders”. Managing in the Major Leagues has become much more profitable than it was even ten years ago. Another thing that has changed over the last ten years, with the exception of a few teams, is loyalty among managers, general managers, and team owners, resulting in the constant firing of managers, even those under contract for a number of years after the axing.

Only Bobby Cox of the Braves, Bruce Bochy of the Padres, and Joe Torre of the Yankees have managed their respective ball clubs for more than eight years. Then you have teams like the Blue Jays, Mets, and Orioles among others that change managers like they change their underwear. There is no loyalty anymore in not only baseball managing, but in the entire lexicon of professional sports. I used to believe that it was only occurring in the NFL as an average of more than six coaches were fired yearly during the last five years of the 1990s, but the problem has spread like the bubonic plague and every coach or manager in the four major pro sports has been affected.

Don’t worry. All this is leading up to something. There were seven teams this past season that have either changed managers or fired them outright. To site some specific cases, Art Howe was in the second season of his managerial contract with the New York Mets in 2004. In mid-September, the Mets announced that he would be relieved of his duties at season’s end. The same can be said for former Mariners’ skipper Bob Melvin, fired October 4, the day after the 2004 season ended. He, too, was in his second year. The saddest (or funniest, depending on how you see it) case of this was in Philadelphia when the Phillies canned manager Larry Bowa two days before the season ended. They didn’t even let the guy manage the final two games!

One good thing that will come out of these firings is that there will be some hirings of some former MLB managers that are simply too good to let go.

The first is Bobby Valentine, who led the Mets to two playoff appearances in 1999 and a World Series appearance in 2000. He was fired after the 2002 campaign after a barely-over-.500 2001 and a mediocre season in 2002. However, there have been talks of him leaving his new managerial position in Japan to return to the Mets’ bench in 2005.

Another great manager of the past is Jim Fregosi, the man that led the Philadelphia Phillies past the highly favored Atlanta Braves in the 1993 National League Championship Series, and took the eventual world champion Toronto Blue Jays to six games before one of the most exciting endings to a Fall Classic in history (If you don’t know, you better ask somebody).

There are a few other fine managers who have been left out in the cold. The aforementioned Bob Brenly won a world championship with the four-year old Arizona Diamondbacks in his first season as manager. Mike Hargrove, most recently with the Baltimore Orioles, led the Cleveland Indians to six AL Central titles, three ALCS appearances, and two World Series appearances in 1995 and 1997. Jimy Williams led the Boston Red Sox to two postseason appearances in 1998 and 1999. I think you get the general idea.

So, let’s summarize. There is no shortage of talent to man the benches of teams that need proper leadership, but how long will they last after being hired? As we have seen before our very eyes, even the highest profile skippers won’t even last the duration of their oversized contracts if their owners are impatient (which most of them are). Everything else aside, all I can say is happy hunting!