With the 2004 season less than a month gone, the Los Angeles Dodgers have reportedly shown Las Vegas 51s manager Terry Kennedy the door.
Kennedy, hired in the middle of a tumultuous offseason that saw the Dodgers change ownership and general managers, said last week that the Dodgers told him that he won't be back for a second season at the helm of the 51s. Las Vegas' record of 67-76 was the worst in four years of affiliation with the Dodgers.
In a statement left on the voice mail of the 51s' public relations department, Dodgers assistant general manager Kim Ng said simply that "at this time, we are not going to discuss personnel decisions."
Several attempts this weekend to contact Las Vegas general manager Don Logan were unsuccessful.
Kennedy, still with the Dodgers this weekend even after he'd been fired, said the move was the result of internal shuffling in the first full offseason for new general manager Paul DePodesta.
"I actually asked what the situation was next year, and then they told me when I was up here," Kennedy said. "They've been good enough to let me stay here and expose myself to the other clubs that are playing. I've been helping out Tracy and his staff and going along OK."
Kennedy was the fourth manager in the four years that the Dodgers have had their Triple-A franchise in Las Vegas. Rick Sofield, the team's 2001 manager, was fired just days after his 68-76 season ended. Brad Mills' 2002 team went 85-59, and Mills was lined up for a second season when he was hired as the Montreal Expos' bench coach, a position he now holds with the Boston Red Sox. John Shoemaker followed with a 76-66 record in 2003, but reached a mutual decision last offseason to go back to serving as a roving instructor in the Dodgers' farm.
Kennedy said he was surprised, especially after the team improved toward the end of the season.
"I look back, and we won 67 games. I was pleased," Kennedy said. "We were above .500 in the second half, we won eight of 11 at the end. At the beginning and the way our inconsistencies were, I didn't think we were going to win that many."
A report published last week on the Dodgers' official Web site listed Double-A Jacksonville manager Dino Ebel as Kennedy's likely successor. Ebel, who in three seasons with the Suns has compiled a 210-206 record, moved his family to Las Vegas from his hometown of Barstow, Calif., last October.
Reached late Sunday night shortly after returning from visiting family in Barstow, Ebel said Marty Reed, his pitching coach in Jacksonville, told him of the report that said he was the frontrunner.
"I'm excited. If I get the job, that's something I've always wanted to do, and officially I haven't heard anything," Ebel said.
Ebel said that he hasn't heard anything about his status with the organization as the shake-up continues. However, he is slated next month to join Shoemaker, Dodgers senior vice president Tommy Lasorda, and Dodgers pitching coordinator Rick Honeycutt on a short goodwill trip to Osaka, Japan, assuming the Japanese players have settled their strike by then.
"It's the first year I get to spend time at home for the last seven or eight years," he said, after several winters as a manager in Central America and the Caribbean.
A former Dodgers minor leaguer, Ebel made it as high as two games with Triple-A Albuquerque in 1991, before ending his playing career in 1994. He came back as a manager at Class A San Bernardino in 1997.
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