BALTIMORE (AP) -Cal Ripken is tired of seeing the Baltimore Orioles shuffle their managers and front office personnel, although the Hall of Famer likes the credentials newcomer Andy MacPhail brings as the team’s new president of baseball operations.
Ripken spent his entire career with Baltimore, winning the World Series in 1983 and reaching the playoffs in 1996 and 1997. He will be inducted into the Hall this month.
Ripken retired in October 2001, but he still pays close attention to the Orioles, who this year appear headed toward a 10th consecutive losing season.
“There’s a lot of frustration, not only on the field or around the Oriole organization. The people around here just want a winner in the worst possible way,” Ripken said Tuesday during a teleconference held by TBS. “And the frustration really comes out loud and clear when changes are made.”
In an effort to stem the slide, Baltimore last week fired manager Sam Perlozzo, made Dave Trembley the interim manager and hired MacPhail to oversee personnel decisions. Trembley is Baltimore’s third manager since the start of the 2004 season.
“I think the change might give some hope in the initial stages, but it just seems like it’s part of the ongoing environment of the change, which is not good for the players, it’s not good for the fans, it’s certainly not good for management to keep switching around,” Ripken said.
Ripken, however, appreciates the work MacPhail did with the Minnesota Twins and Chicago Cubs.
“Andy MacPhail has a nice resume coming in, a good resume with Minnesota, a good resume with Chicago,” Ripken said. “Coming in it’s going to be a difficult task, to evaluate what’s there and what’s not. But certainly from the outside you could make a case that here’s someone that has done it before, and if anyone had the ability to come in and start to put together a stable environment, it could be him.”
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