Dan_Miller's Blog

I don't know if you had a chance to read Jerry Green's column over the weekend about Jim Leyland, but it was a good read.   It was about managers being fired.   As the TIgers stumble towards the end of a very disappointing season, there have certainly been questions about the futures of both the players and Leyland.  In fact, he was quoted by Green as saying the following....

"I'm not leaving here if that's what you're getting at," he told me the other day in the manager's office in the clubhouse at Comerica Park.

"They'll have to fire me. I'm very happy here. Let's see how that plays out. I like managing and I've got a lot of energy. So I'm strong, I feel good, I've got a lot of energy and I want to manage."

So clearly the skipper knows the questions are out there and he addressed the issue for Green.  Now here's how it works in the media.  Once something like this is out there, it will be addressed again.  Managers, players and GM's are all used to answering follow-ups to articles or columns that are written.  Other media members want the quote for their articles or radio or tv shows. 

So fast forward to yesterday after the teams latest loss.  Our reporter, Ryan Ermanni, went into Leylands office after the game and asked him to talk about his future and whether or not there was any question that he would be back.  A rehash of the article? Yes.  Common practice to get the quote again?  Yes.  Leyland was clearly in no mood to talk about it and he told Ermanni he had no idea what he was talking about and then invited Ryan to leave his office.   Leyland was calm and within his rights to react this way.  It would have been nice to hear him reaffirm his commitment to the team in light of his having walked away from three previous jobs, but he can certainly choose what questions he wants to answer and when.  

Not over yet.  A member of the Tigers media relations staff then informed Ermanni that "you don't ask that question after a loss."  Now I will leave his name out of this because he's a good guy who lost track of his job responsibilities.  Media relations staffers can inform somebody if they don't like a question but they don't dictate what the questions can or should be. Period.  Further, I will submit with great confidence that if the question had come from Mitch Albom or Wojo, said media relations worker wouldn't have said a word about this.  Ermanni is a talented guy but still working his way up the totem pole and dealing with this kind of treatment is part of the climb. 

When all is said and done, our job as a staff  is to ask questions.  Fair questions.  Questions YOU want answered.  Along the way we may not get the answers we want and we may be asked to move on to the next topic or at times to the next room.   That's ok.  That's not the crime here.  It's somebody thinking that they can dictate how we do our jobs.  Funny though, it seems when the teams we cover actually do their jobs, we never have these problems.