Stars manager fired

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Sept. 23, 1999 | 10:27 a.m.

The San Diego Padres' major shake-up of their farm system has reached down to their triple-A offices in Las Vegas.

Mike Ramsey, who was the Southern League's manager of the year in 1998 after piloting a Mobile Bay Bears double-A squad that was named Baseball America's Minor League Team of the Year, has been fired after just one year as skipper of the Las Vegas Stars.

Former big leaguer Duane Espy, who spent the last five years as a roving hitting instructor in the Padres' organization, will replace Ramsey as manager next season.

Ramsey, who directed the Stars to a 67-75 record this past season and a third-place finish in the Pacific Coast League's Southern Division just 6 1/2 games behind league champ Salt Lake, was stunned by the news.

"I guess I went from being a genius to an idiot in 12 months," he said Wednesday night from his home in Largo, Fla.

What really bugged Ramsey was that he didn't get the news directly from Padres general manager Kevin Towers or Ted Simmons, who was recently hired for a newly created position of Vice President of Player Development and Scouting and was a former teammate of Ramsey's in St. Louis. Simmons also helped get Ramsey his first minor league coaching job. Instead, Tye Waller, director of minor league instruction, delivered the bad news.

"I guess Kevin and his guys didn't have the (guts) to give me a call," Ramsey said. "I was a little bit surprised. I was getting some vibes. From about August on, we weren't really communicating very well with the major league side. We heard different things. And then they let Skaalen go."

Skaalen was Padres' Director of Player Development Jim Skaalen, who was fired in early September along with minor league pitching coordinator Jeff Andrews, minor league pitching instructor Sid Monge, double-A pitching coach Don Alexander and minor league instructors Tony Phillips, Angel Morris and Steve Hendricks.

Towers then brought in Simmons and gave him a three-year, $200,000-per-year contract to overhaul the minor league system. That farm league, until catcher Ben Davis this year, had not produced an everyday major league player since infielder Dave Hollins almost a decade earlier.

Simmons, 50, an eight-time All-Star as a catcher, was director of player development for St. Louis from 1988 to 1991 and also served as Pittsburgh's general manager for 16 months before suffering a heart attack in 1993. Recently he was an advisor to Cleveland GM John Hart.

Simmons then hired Bill Bryk, 48, who had spent the last 18 years in the Pirates' organization, to replace Skaalen.

"There's a lot of politics and a lot of things going on there that are really unrelated to winning games and developing players I think," Ramsey said. "I did everything by the book over there. I won my share of games, developed my share of players who are continuing to get better in the big leagues now. I don't know what else I can do. Obviously, there are some other factors that go into evaluating people (with the Padres) that I'm not aware of I guess."

Indeed, Ramsey helped mold most of the cream of the Padres' minor league crop the last couple of seasons, including Davis, outfielders Gary Matthews Jr. and Mike Darr, infielder David Newhan, catcher Wiki Gonzalez and pitchers Matt Clement, Buddy Carlyle, Will Cunnane and Stan Spencer, all of whom have spent major portions of the 1999 season in San Diego.

"They haven't really given me a real answer (for getting fired) other than making a change for the sake of making a change," Ramsey said. "But I'm sure they have their reasons, though."

Ramsey's staff will also be reassigned. Longtime hitting coach Craig "Dewey" Colbert is headed to manage the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Wizards of the single-A Midwest League while pitching coach Tom Brown could wind up in Mobile to replace Alexander.

Ramsey, 45, pointed to his team's strong 28-25 finish after the All-Star break despite losing a number of its top players to big leagues as the highlight of his unexpectedly short stay in Las Vegas. He was unsure what he would do next.

"I'm going to call a few clubs and also explore a few options outside of baseball," he said. "If I can get a baseball job preferably closer to home here I'll probably take it. I'm also looking into the scouting ends of things.

"I'm a little discouraged right now," Ramsey continued. "Just about the whole thing, how it went down and why it went down. To me, it's not the way you do things. But it doesn't surprise me totally. It's just the way it is, man."