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Sometimes change is a good thing

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Times Staff Writer

Job security is an oxymoron when it comes to oft-fired major league baseball managers, but sometimes changing the skipper seems to pay off.

Consider the New York Mets.

One month ago, the team was in disarray despite its expensive payroll and trailed the Philadelphia Phillies by seven games in the National League East. So the front office sacked manager Willie Randolph and replaced him with Jerry Manuel.

After that, the Mets went 18-9 as of Friday morning, topped by a 10-game winning streak -- the team’s longest in 17 years -- and were tied with the Phillies atop the standings.

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“I love seeing guys who told us two weeks ago how bad we stunk,” Mets reliever Billy Wagner told the New York Daily News. “Now they’re going, ‘Well, you’re in first place.’ ”

Trivia time

Manuel was AL Manager of the Year when he was managing the Chicago White Sox. What year was that?

Getting offensive

The Boston Red Sox are battling to stay in first place in the American League East amid a tiff between Manny Ramirez and the team’s principal owner, John Henry.

Ramirez told the Boston Herald, in less-than-appreciative terms, that he wanted management to clarify its plans for the 36-year-old outfielder after this season.

“I want no more [expletive] where they tell you one thing and behind your back they do another thing,” Ramirez said, adding that he had “earned that respect, for a team to sit down with me and tell me this is what we want.”

But Henry, in an e-mail to the newspaper, shot back, “I find the remarks that we have been anything other than completely straightforward to be personally offensive.”

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Fresh air,

stale idea

After the National Hockey League set plans for an outdoor game at Wrigley Field on New Year’s Day came word that the WNBA is set to hold its first outdoor event as well.

The New York Liberty tonight will play host to the Indiana Fever at Arthur Ashe Stadium, part of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in the New York borough of Queens.

The Liberty Outdoor Classic is the first outdoor game in professional women’s or men’s basketball, USA Today said, adding that 17,000 of the 22,000 seats had been sold as of Thursday.

The game, which involved moving the basketball court from Madison Square Garden to the tennis setting, is “definitely a significant milestone for the league,” WNBA President Donna Orender said.

But ESPN.com said “the concept of an outdoor basketball game isn’t anything new,” noting that the University of Tennessee’s women’s team played outside against Arizona State in 2000.

As cycling turns

In the sport of MotoGP, the international motorcycle racing series, falling off the winner’s podium hurts nearly as much as tumbling from the sport’s blistering-fast bikes.

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Just ask Nicky Hayden, known as “The Kentucky Kid,” who won the world title in 2006 and has struggled ever since.

As the sport arrived in Monterey for the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix on Sunday -- the first of its two American stops this year -- Hayden languished eighth in points after finishing eighth last season.

“It’s hard,” Hayden, 26, said in an interview. “This isn’t just a hobby I do on the weekends and just brush it off when I don’t do well.”

But the Honda rider isn’t giving up, and said racing on his home turf again could turn things around.

“To stand on the podium of your home GP and hear the national anthem is an absolutely incredible feeling,” he said.

Trivia answer

2000, when Manuel guided the White Sox to a 95-67 record en route to an AL Central Division title.

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And finally

Just how weak is baseball’s National League West? Yahoo Sports noted that between May 20 and the All-Star break, the San Francisco Giants had the division’s best record at 23-26. Yet entering Friday, the team was only 40-55 overall, seven games out of first place, and on track to lose 93 games.

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james.peltz@latimes.com

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