Willie's firing evokes memories of odd exterminations from the past

Willie Randolph traveled across the country ... just to get canned. Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

By Sarah Kwak, SI.com

It's never easy being told you're not wanted, that the organization is going in a different direction and that your services will no longer be needed. You can couch it in a thousand euphemisms -- all related to "philosophical differences," of course -- but it doesn't change the fact that you've just been fired.

For a coach, losing a job is hard enough, but to learn about it on the road, after a win, at about midnight in an unfamiliar hotel, as Mets manager Willie Randolph did Monday night, that borders on offensive. To announce the firing at 3:12 a.m. ET, when all your fans are sleeping (and your local papers are rolling off the presses), is just plain cowardly.

But in sports, where job terminations are frequent, "coaches are hired to be fired." And although Randolph's dismissal was classless and crass, it doesn't come close to being the most outrageous firing in professional sports. In fact, it may not even be the strangest firing in New York baseball history. Remember that the Mets share the city with the Yankees and their longtime owner George Steinbrenner, who was notoriously trigger-happy with his managers throughout the 1980s.

From 1973-92, the Yankees managerial position had more turnover than the Baltimore Ravens' offense, with 13 different coaches occupying the spot during that period. Billy Martin took five trips on the Yankee managerial carousel; Yogi Berra, who was told he'd manage the whole 1985 season, win or lose, got the boot after 16 games, and the team went through three skippers during both the 1978 and '82 seasons.

Arguably the most memorable of those firings came in November 1980. After Yankees manager Dick Howser led New York to a 103-win season, Steinbrenner called an informal press luncheon to announce: "Dick has decided that he will not be returning to the Yankees next year. I should say, not returning to the Yankees as manager." He'd instead go into real estate development and scout from Florida. It was Howser's decision, Steinbrenner insisted. But when asked if he had been fired, Howser replied, "I'm not going to comment on that." He didn't comment, but everyone heard him loud and clear.

Steinbrenner's press conference, though, looks civil in comparison to the notable 2005 on-court near-firing of Ashley McElhiney. The former Vanderbilt hoops star became the first female coach of a men's professional basketball team in 2004 when she was hired to coach the ABA's Nashville Rhythm. Things were going well for the 23-year-old McElhiney until January 29, 2005, when team co-owner and CEO Sally Anthony told McElhiney to bench the team's star player Matt Freije, apparently upset her two partners had paid him $10,000 to play two games. The coach ignored the order.

As the game wore on, Anthony became so incensed with McElhiney that she eventually marched out onto the court during the middle of the game and fired her on the spot. Anthony had to be restrained by security and escorted off the court. McElhiney was "reinstated" as head coach by the other co-owners of the team but eventually resigned after the season ended. The Nashville franchise folded nine months later.

In truth, though, most firings aren't done quite so publicly. Sometimes they're done so privately that the coach barely knows it's happened at all. Take for example former Chicago Blackhawks coach Billy Reay, whose pink slip was literally shoved under his apartment door. The note came from owner Bill Wirtz, who dismissed the 13-year Chicago coach from the organization altogether just three days before Christmas in 1976. Or Joe Altobelli, who managed the Baltimore Orioles to a World Series title in 1983. On a Wednesday in June 1985, Orioles owner Edward Bennett Williams decided to fire the skipper. Yet Altobelli showed up to the offices the next day asking around, "Am I fired?"