As Expected, Yankees Fire Merrill

For weeks, Stump Merrill knew he was going to be fired as manager of the New York Yankees. That didn’t stop him from feeling angry and hurt when it happened.

“When you’ve spent 15 years of your life to work for this kind of a goal, and you finally achieve it, and then you’re told you’re let go for betterment in the organization, that’s a slap in the face to me,” Merrill said Monday after the team announced his dismissal.

General Manager Gene Michael told Merrill after Sunday’s season finale, but waited a day to let the world know.

“I don’t want to get into specifics,” Michael said. “I don’t want to hurt him. He tried hard and did the best he can. . . . I thought we were in a rut. I didn’t think the players were responding at all.”

The Yankees finished fifth in the AL East at 71-91 after finishing last in 1990 at 67-95. Merrill, who has been with the Yankees’ organization for 16 years, took over as manager when Bucky Dent, now a coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, was fired June 6, 1990. The team was 18-31 at the time.

“When you take a seventh-place club and take it into fifth with the talent we had and the problems we had with injuries to the veterans . . . the club did well to finish where they did,” Merrill said. “If they think a manager change will make a difference, more power too them. We talked about stability, and that’s not my definition of stability.”