Royster Fired as Brewer Manager

Jerry Royster knew he was out as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers after last week’s front-office shakeup.

The official firing came Wednesday and made Royster the sixth major league manager to lose his job in the last four days.

Doug Melvin replaced Dean Taylor as Brewer general manager last week as part of the changes that included Wendy Selig-Prieb stepping down as president.

“I don’t have any problem with what Doug’s doing, I think it’s the right thing to do,” Royster said. “A general manager has to hire his own guy. If I were Doug, I’d fire me, too.”

Melvin said his search for a replacement would begin with Jerry Narron, who was fired by the Texas Rangers on Tuesday, and Buck Showalter, former manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks, but that he wanted to include an array of candidates.

The Brewers had the National League’s worst record at 56-106 and finished 41 games behind the Central Division-winning St. Louis Cardinals.

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The woman accused of extortion by New York Met pitcher Grant Roberts financially supported him while he played in the minor leagues, her lawyer said.

Jodi Turner gave Roberts money, paid his rent and bought various items “for a significant period of time” in the late 1990s, lawyer Stephen Scaring said, Newsday reported Wednesday.

“We’re talking everything,” Scaring said. “When he needed money, he called her and she gave it to him.”

Roberts and agent Seth Levinson have said Turner tried to extort money from him before releasing a 1998 picture that appeared in Newsday showing the pitcher smoking marijuana. An accompanying article said at least seven Mets have used marijuana this season.

Roberts was scheduled to meet with prosecutors in Queens on Tuesday, but the meeting was postponed.

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The Seattle Mariners signed catcher and infielder Chao Kuan Wu to a minor league contract, the organization’s first player from Taiwan.

The 18-year-old is a 6-foot-3, 180-pound left-handed hitter who played on Taiwan’s Little League World Series title team in 1996.