The Seattle Mariners (43-70) fired Don Wakamatsu, their manager, yesterday. As the Seattle paper notes, this took place right before the Mariners’ celebration of Japanese heritage day, and Wakamatu’s firing was just the latest in a long string of odd incidents this year.
Missed this on Sunday, but the Pirates fired their pitching coach and bench coach.
And the city of Maywood (remember Maywood?) is considering firing the city of Bell, due to the ongoing salary scandal in Bell.
Not exactly a firing, but I’m going to throw this in anyway: LA County Sheriff Lee Baca is refusing to release records involving the death of Ruben Salazar. Salazar was a television journalist covering an anti-Vietnam war rally in East LA on August 29, 1970; he was killed when a sheriff’s deputy fired a tear-gas grenade into a bar and hit Salazar in the head.
The LAT doesn’t mention this aspect of Salazar’s life, but I will. I’ve been interested in Salazar ever since I read The Great Shark Hunt
Edited to add: Whoops, I was mistaken. I had Salazar confused with Oscar Zeta Acosta. That’s what I get for relying on my memory while I was at work, and not waiting until I got home to check my sources. HST did write about Salazar in The Great Shark Hunt, though.