Talk Show Caller Hired To Manage Houston Astros

HOUSTON, TX--After several questionable moves by manager Phil Garner, the Houston Astros have had enough. The team’s front office has decided to fire Garner in the middle of the NLCS and replace him with Rob Merrill of Austin, TX, a regular caller to Houston’s SportsRadio 610 morning show. Merrill, 28, has offered scathing criticism of Garner’s decision-making since the playoffs began and has earned a reputation as a fiery, yet knowledgeable, student of the game.

“What the hell was he [Garner] thinking, not bringing in Lidge?” cried Merrill following Houston’s Game 2 loss to the Cardinals. “The guy’s been your best reliever for the past two months, you’re in a crucial part of the game, and you leave him sitting in the bullpen? That’s ridiculous. This guy should be fired, man.”

Now Merrill’s unparalleled genius has caught the attention of GM Gerry Hunsicker, who has asked him to manage the Houston Astros.

“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant,” said Hunsicker. “Everybody knows that talk show callers are extremely knowledgeable and level-headed people, but Mr. Merrill has shown himself to be head and shoulders above the rest. He has proven that he understands exactly what to do in every single situation. It’s uncanny. While actual, professional baseball managers are prone to mistakes in judgment, Mr. Merrill seems infallible. Therefore, we’ve offered him the chance to manage the Houston Astros.”

Hunsicker admitted that he has been scouting the sports talk shows for months looking for potential managers. After hundreds of hours of listening and several meetings with his advisors, Hunsicker settled on Merrill.

“First of all, let me just say that we heard some of the brightest baseball minds of our generation on these sports talk shows,” said Hunsicker. “These are some sharp people. They always know which decisions were right and which decisions were wrong after the game is over. But the one who consistently got it right was Rob Merrill. He knew that Lidge should have been brought in to Game 2 and not Micelli. He knew Clemens should have stayed in the game longer. If he was managing the team, we might’ve won that game. Well now we have him, hopefully. I heard he’s been talking to several other teams, too.”

Merrill, a data entry clerk at a local accounting firm, was surprised by the Astros offer. Nevertheless, he accepted it immediately.

“Well, I knew they were having problems with Garner, but I’m still pretty surprised,” said Merrill. “I mean, Jim Fergosi is still out there, and so is Don Baylor and Grady Little. Hell, I heard even Whitey Herzog might be available. The fact that they chose me shows how impressed they are with my keen intellect and astute comprehension of the game. There are a lot of subtleties and nuances about baseball that the casual fan is unaware of. Guys like Phil Garner don’t understand that kind of stuff. But I do.”

“I guess maybe I should’ve seen this coming,” he continued. “I’ve been blowing people away with some of my comments on 610 AM and I guess word of mouth just spread. I guess now I have to pick my staff. That guy Mad Dog who always calls in from his car seems pretty smart. Maybe I’ll make him my bench coach.”

The move is being applauded around the league. Baseball owners and GM’s have long been envious of sports talk radio for having the market cornered on dazzling and innovative minds. Yankees GM Brian Cashman predicts that more managers will be plucked from the airwaves in the future.

“Wow, you talk about genius on the level of Einstein, Hawking, Wittgenstein… these guys are all that and more,” said Cashman, who admitted he listens to WFAN radio for tips on how to run the Yankees. “I don’t know how some of these callers have slipped through the cracks. I tell you, if it wasn’t for Joe Torre, I’d be giving a serious look to some of these guys. Truthfully, a lot of these guys are smarter than Joe. We’re just keeping him around because we feel sorry for him and because he has some--ahem--provocative photos of Mr. Steinbrenner.”

Cashman’s prediction would turn out to be true as the New York Mets announced that they are interviewing several candidates from the pool of callers on local talk radio. The Mets have been searching for a new manager after firing Art Howe in September.

“One thing about New Yorkers, they love their talk radio, “said Omar Minaya, Mets GM. “So there is a large pool of candidates for us to choose from. There’s Ray from Brooklyn, Jose from Queens, and Reggie from the Bronx. They all knew Jim [Duquette, former GM] was making horrible decisions during his tenure here and they even offered some helpful suggestions. Unfortunately he didn’t listen. Well I will. In fact, I’m going to try and pull the trigger on that deal that Ray from Brooklyn suggested yesterday. You know, the Piazza for Johann Santana and Torii Hunter deal.Why didn't I think of that? ”