Fay: Miley, O'Brien never did mesh(Very interesting comments all around here)

[CincyRedsFan30]

Miley, O'Brien never did mesh
General manager wanted Graham

By John Fay

Enquirer staff writer

In retrospect, it's surprising the baseball marriage of Dan O'Brien and Dave Miley lasted as long as it did.

The two couldn't be much further apart on the personality scale.

Miley is an old-school baseball guy, a little rough around the edges, strictly blue-collar. If it were up to him, the only meetings he would attend are the ones on the mound when he removes a pitcher.

O'Brien is much more corporate, very smooth, and his button-down white shirts are always perfectly pressed. He likes to meet often and long.

Ask Miley a question, and you'll get a few short, fragmented sentences. Ask O'Brien what time it is, and he'll tell you how to make a watch.

But the two were thrust together when O'Brien was hired as general manager Oct. 27, 2003. Miley had just finished the season as the Reds' interim manager.

O'Brien conducted a search that lasted more than a month and settled on Brian Graham, the Pittsburgh Pirates' director of player development.

Miley eventually was hired when chief operating officer John Allen and chief executive officer Carl Lindner intervened.

Miley and O'Brien got along. They had a reasonable working relationship. But they were never very comfortable around one another. Again: different styles, different personalities.

One story illustrates that pretty well.

Miley has a lot of little catch phrases. One of his favorites is: "What do you want me to do about it? I'm only one man."

It's said in jest. If a writer said his office was too hot, Miley's reply would be: "What do you want me to do about it? I'm only one man."

O'Brien got wind that Miley was using the expression and asked him to stop. Miley did, but he was perplexed. He always said what he said in fun, but O'Brien didn't see it that way.

Miley didn't speak to the press Tuesday. O'Brien said Miley was "relieved" when given the news of his firing.

But Miley told friends he wasn't so happy after hearing what O'Brien and interim manager Jerry Narron had to say at the news conference introducing Narron.

Miley took responsibility for the club's woes. He told Allen in Denver when Allen made his last-day-of-the-road-trip visit that he would understand if Allen fired him.

Though he took responsibility, Miley thought the 6-19 record of his top three starters had a lot more to do with the team's record than anything he did or didn't do.

It has been written and said a lot lately that Miley had lost the team.

Sean Casey said that's not true.

"I don't think Miley lost the team," Casey said. "I think the team was just in such a funk. The result of us playing so bad was that Dave Miley got fired. But he wasn't the reason we played so bad."

Miley was not universally popular in the clubhouse. Rich Aurilia endorsed his firing.

"It's a step in the right direction," Aurilia said.

Aurilia, of course, was not happy that he lost his starting job to Felipe Lopez.

Told one day that Aurilia was going to rip him because Aurilia wasn't in the lineup, Miley mentioned Lopez's stats and then said:

"What do you want me to do about it? I'm only one man."

E-mail jfay@enquirer.com

[Wally Mo Pena]

I can't believe what a hopeless ass Rich Aurilia is. I want Dan O'brien fired for bringing him here, above all else. I've heard the term clubhouse cancer before, but never have i seen a display like htis. The guy is such a delusional narcissist. For pete's sake, he lost his starting job before he got injured, the injury was just timing. He's crazy, and i want him gone NOW.

[Slyder]

I can't believe what a hopeless ass Rich Aurilia is. I want Dan O'brien fired for bringing him here, above all else. I've heard the term clubhouse cancer before, but never have i seen a display like htis. The guy is such a delusional narcissist. For pete's sake, he lost his starting job before he got injured, the injury was just timing. He's crazy, and i want him gone NOW.

Hes still trying to live off his past in San Balcocisco, he is truely the hardest headed individual if he believes he has outplayed Lopez. Trade him to anyone looking for a cheap role player and make it public just so Aurilia sees how much value he carries at this point.

[Sea Ray]

I bet Aurilia is feeling "it" from his teammates after his comments. He seems to stand out as the only one who has supported these moves. I bet they want him gone as much as we do.

[Jr's Boy]

I agree,but when will Casey ever agree that some moves need to be made rather than try to mouth off about how bad it is that this or that person got fired.

[CincyRedsFan30]

The thing I took out of this article is that my suspicions about who was deciding what with this team(since the beginning of the year) are indeed true.

I think O'Brien forced Miley into many of his poor decisions with "masked" threats.

[redsrbetter]

agreed CRF.

Miley is addressed as being the guy who wanted Lopez to be the everday SS in this article. Now that he is gone, Aurilia is still getting his fair share of starts. This tells me one thing, DanO has to have been behind this the whole time. Also, Fay can kiss my butt. I am glad he shared this info, but he just made Miley look worse than he really was. Tried to say he was bad for starting Lopez over Aurilia? Chalk Fay on the fire sale list.

[QuietAcre]

Some of you need to look past this whole "Aurilia sucks, and he sucks more because he speaks out..." thing. Sure, the guy isn't that impressive a player, but......you can't deny that he has hit the nail square on the head with everything he said. Miley does not communicate well in pressure situations. Aurilia pointed that out. None of the others did. Also, while other players are copping out with "I don't really have an answer" everytime they screw up, at least Aurilia seems to understand WHY he screwed up. I know some of you just think that Aurilia is all sour grapes, but I truthfully felt he would have never made a stink about being a back-up player (or getting a demotion) if Miley had been up-front about it. The problem is NO ONE on the team knew their role with Miley at the helm. Dave Miley made A LOT of highly questionable moves as manager, to the point of deliberately ****ing up. That, or his record in the minor leagues was a hell of a lot better than he deserved. If Miley had communicated with the players, instead of just sitting there every game, blinking away while his players are rotting away, things might have been different.

[CincyRedsFan30]

I don't think the players knew their roles because Miley didn't know his role thanks to O'Brien. I think that led to many of the "communication" issues surrounding the team.

[Sea Ray]

The thing I took out of this article is that my suspicions about who was deciding what with this team(since the beginning of the year) are indeed true.

I think O'Brien forced Miley into many of his poor decisions with "masked" threats.

If that's the case then let's hope for Miley's sake he learned his lesson...consider this a rookie manager's mistake. By going along with the GM's wishes he still got fired because he didn't win enough games. At the end of the day he was evaluated on wins and losses. You camn't be a successful manager by being a yes man to the GM; especially a GM as clueless as this one.

The bottomline is if Miley managed poorly due to pressure from O'Brien then he deserved to get fired anyway.

[CincyRedsFan30]

I agree with the decision to fire him, I just don't think he was as bad as it may have seemed.

As Junior said, I think he deserves another chance in another environment. His closeness to the players may have actually hurt him and the team in this particular case. Sometimes being close to them is a good thing, but I don't think it was for this team.

[Sea Ray]

I agree with the decision to fire him, I just don't think he was as bad as it may have seemed.

As Junior said, I think he deserves another chance in another environment. His closeness to the players may have actually hurt him and the team in this particular case. Sometimes being close to them is a good thing, but I don't think it was for this team.

After seeing how he managed here, I would want no part of him managing my major league team if I were a GM, but I'd love to have him managing in my minor leagues.

The players always come out with the same cliches everytime their manager is fired. We heard the same stuff when Tony Perez was fired yet nobody's clamouring to hire him as their next manager