The evening that a televised Chone Figgins told Don Wakamatsu to take a flying leap at the moon, SSI advised that the next morning we would all know where Zduriencik stood on Don Wakamatsu.

That since became the consensus.  No offense to our good amigos round the blog-o-sphere, but the general reaction the morning after was, Please don't overreact, no biggie, don't panic, give it a month and we'll see how it plays out.

Baker and SSI that night, however, were shellshocked at Figgins' code-break, given the specific manner in which he did it.  Here we had no less than a mutiny, and a dare for somebody, anybody, to do anything about it.

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Sure enough, Zduriencik wandered off the next morning with little interest in the affair, so to speak, and Baker correctly began the Dead Man Walking countdown...

Kudos to Zduriencik for not allowing the suffering to drag on.

He has consistently maintained that an organization cannot afford to ossify into Losing Chemistry, that it cannot get used to losing. 

The Mike Sweeneys and Milton Bradleys and Russell Branyans have been brought in, in part precisely because Jack Zduriencik does not want Rob Johnson and Franklin Gutierrez and Michael Saunders and, perish the thought, Justin Smoak to ever begin to think that, as in (e.g.) Mike Hargrove's playing career, there is an enjoyable MLB (TM) existence to be carved out whether or not you ever get to the playoffs.

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Don't underestimate Zduriencik's anger at Wakamatsu.  Z felt that he brought an 85-90 win team into training camp.  From Z's point of view, he handed Wak a talented roster led by Felix Hernandez and Cliff Lee both, and Wak did a spit-poor job with it.  Now Zduriencik's job is on the line: he's not 1-and-0; he's 1-and-1 and the -1 is yooo-gly.

Zduriencik had to be seething, since April 25 at least, and yet he's handled the situation with the utmost dignity.

It says here that Zduriencik decided to fire Wok the night that Figgins mooned him.  But how would that have played on ESPN?  Ballplayer moons manager, manager fired, film at 11?

Nope.  And you'll notice that Figgins was awfully cocksure in his "for me the same page is winning" 'tude after the meet with Z and W.

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 Part 2

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