Time Was Never on Lopes’ Side

Hungering for an opportunity to manage, to be more than a token minority interview as a series of clubs fulfilled the commissioner’s edict, Davey Lopes wasn’t going to reject a legitimate offer when it finally came, even though he knew Milwaukee was a long way from any Iowa of his dreams.

Lopes knew the odds. He knew any team owned by Bud Selig wasn’t going to burn the payroll to bring in an impact player or two at a time when Selig is directing the clubs’ attempt to change the economic system. He knew he would need more years than the three the Brewers were offering if he was going to remake a team that hadn’t produced a .500 record since 1992 into a contender in his own image of speed, fire and aggressiveness.

“A lot of people discouraged me from taking it because they thought I was just setting myself up for failure,” Lopes was saying earlier this week, sensing those odds were catching up to him, “but I was determined to show them I could do it.”

A no-win situation reflected by his 144-195 record in two-plus seasons at the helm and compounded by a 3-12 start to the new season, the worst start in Brewer history, overtook his determination Thursday.

Lopes was fired and replaced on an interim basis by coach Jerry Royster, a former Dodger infielder who began his major league career as an apprentice under Lopes when they were teammates in Los Angeles.

Their manager then was current Dodger vice president Tom Lasorda, who reacted to the firing by saying he was stunned and that it didn’t diminish his respect for Lopes’ knowledge or his conviction he can be a successful major league manager.

“When a team has a bad start, the first person they go after is the manager, that’s just the way it is,” Lasorda said, “but I really thought they’d give him more time because he had a lot of work to do there.

“[What happened] doesn’t change the fact he’s a good manager and if he gets the right opportunity with the right team he will be successful. I don’t doubt that at all.”

For all of Lopes’ determination and insight, the Brewers clearly didn’t represent the opportunity or team.

A three-game sweep by the Pittsburgh Pirates amid declining attendance in Milwaukee’s second-year ballpark was the final blow.

General Manager Dean Taylor claimed the team had simply stopped responding to Lopes’ leadership and was capable of playing at .500 or better, as it had for four consecutive months at the end of the 2000 season and the beginning of 2001.

Maybe the breeze coming off Brewer bats the last two years has affected Taylor’s thinking.

Last year, it will be recalled, the all-or-nothing Brewers set a major league record for strikeouts while finishing next to last in the National League in stolen bases and on-base percentage.

There were no creative options for Lopes, once a catalytic leadoff man with the Dodgers, and no future for either batting coach Rod Carew, replaced by Gary Matthews, or pitching coach Bob Apodaca, replaced by Dave Stewart.

Former Dodger Eric Young was signed as a free agent in the hope he could ignite the top of the lineup, but he has documented that you can’t steal first base while batting .140 with a .262 on-base percentage.

The rest of Matthews’ hitters are doing what they do best, ranking third in the league in strikeouts and 14th in on-base percentage and batting average. There also have been no miracles under the respected Stewart. Only Colorado has a higher earned-run average than a comparatively no-name staff that was 12th in the league in pitching last year when no starter won more than 11 games.

Lopes could not overcome the burden. He was Dead Man Walking and knew it even before the Pittsburgh series when he reminded reporters that he had told them when hired before the 2000 season that there were no quick fixes, that it was a five- or seven-year program.

“I don’t care who you put in this seat,” he said. “You can put Joe Torre in this seat, you can put Dusty Baker. It doesn’t matter. You’re going to get the same results. I have no doubt about it.”

Royster inherits the seat, but for how long is uncertain.

He managed for three years each in the San Diego and Dodger farm systems, but Taylor conceded he would prefer someone with major league experience.

The general manager also met with Milwaukee players before Thursday night’s victory over St. Louis and told them they could throw out that 3-12 record and all the statistics that went with it. He said this was Opening Day II and the club was committed to spending what was necessary to produce a winner, a revelation that must have come as news to Lopes.

According to management’s own accounting, the Brewers were one of the few teams to show an operating profit ($9 million after debt interest) last year but their $50.2 million payroll--which Taylor said is up 30% since the new park opened--is only 21st among the 30 teams.

If all managers are hired to be fired, baseball’s economics have complicated the pressure.

At Dodger Stadium on Thursday night, San Diego Padre Manager Bruce Bochy, who employed Lopes as his first base coach from 1995 through 1999 and who called him earlier Thursday to extend support, referred to the Brewers’ personnel uncertainty and said:

“Two weeks is not a lot of time for a manager to get his team untracked, but the way the money is now, the emphasis on winning from the start is a lot stronger.

“I feel for Davey. He’s an outstanding baseball man who waited a long time for the opportunity, but he’ll get another. I’m sure of that.”

Hopefully for Lopes, it will be closer to Iowa.