I feel I'm better prepared to manage now. When I managed in K.C., I hadn't managed before. I'm more mature, more understanding and think more like a coach than a player. He played 19 major league seasons with the Royals and Cincinnati Reds, batting over .300 six times and appearing in four World Series. He was 286-277 as manager of the Royals and spent six seasons as a hitting instructor for Cincinnati and Philadelphia before accepting a job with the Devil Rays last fall.
Baseball is a tough business.
I'm pretty sure everything was getting to him. LaMar, who concedes he has made some poor personnel decisions that have impeded the club's progress, said there was no single reason for Rothschild's dismissal. But that's not the case. Rothschild was hired as the Devil Rays' first manager after serving as pitching coach for the then-World Series champion Florida Marlins. The Devil Rays were nearly flawless in opening the season with an 8-1 victory over Toronto, but it was pretty much all downhill after that.