Whipped Cream Difficulties

…at the bottom of the AL Central.

Al Avila out as president and general manager in Detroit.

He’d been with the team for 22 years.

During Avila’s tenure, the Tigers finished in last place in the American League Central Division four times and currently occupy the basement with a 43-68 record and a -122 run differential, both third-worst in the majors.

Charlie Montoyo out as manager of the Toronto Blue Jays.

Toronto is currently 46-42 and is 15 1/2 games out of first place.

Montoyo took over for John Gibbons — the last Jays manager fired mid-season, in June of 2008, before coming back to manage the team again from 2013-18 — to begin the 2019 season, and the Jays were 236-236 over his three and a half seasons.

More from ESPN. As you know, I don’t like using ESPN that much, but in this case, the other Toronto media outlets either had no story, required a subscription, or would not load.

Bench coach John Schneider has been named interim manager for the rest of the season.

Does this mean those Duke boys are at it again?

No punny title, because it has been a busy day and we have multiple firings out of LA to report.

Joe Maddon out as manager of the Los Angeles Angels.

The Angels were 24-13 and tied for first-place with the Houston Astros in the American League West on May 15 but have lost 16 of 19 games since then to fall to 27-29 and 8½ games behind the Astros.

…

Maddon, who spent three decades with the Angels as a minor league coach and coordinator and big league coach, finished with a 157-172 (.477) record in parts of five seasons as Angels manager, including two interim stints in 1996 and 1999. He was manager Mike Scioscia’s bench coach when the Angels won the World Series in 2002.

Derek Fisher out as coach of the Los Angeles Sparks (of the WNBA). 54-46 over “less than” four seasons, 1-4 postseason, and 5-7 to start this season.

And the Lakers, having just hired a new head coach, fired a bunch of assistants: David Fizdale, Mike Penberty and John Lucas III.

…with the ceremonial throwing out of the first manager.

Joe Girardi out as manager of the Phillies.

The Phillies hired Girardi after the 2019 season to replace deposed Gabe Kapler. At the time, owner John Middleton hailed Girardi’s track record, including a World Series championship with the New York Yankees in 2009, and his reputation for blending old-school feel with the use of analytics and data.
But the Phillies went 28-32 under Girardi in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season and 82-80 last season, missing the playoffs both times. They were 132-141 overall with Girardi at the wheel.

…

The Phillies are 22-29, 12 games out of first place the National League East. Entering this weekend’s series with the Los Angeles Angels at Citizens Bank Park, they have lost 12 of the last 17 games.

Well, that’s not true. Some men are Islanders.

Not, however, Barry Trotz, who got fired this morning as head coach.

Trotz’s record as Islanders coach was 152-102-34 in the regular season and 28-21 in the playoffs.
The Islanders (37-35-10) had a disastrous season in 2021-22, prompted by a poorly timed COVID-19 outbreak that derailed them following a season-opening 13-game road trip.

James Borrego out as head coach of the Charlotte Hornets. ESPN.

138-163 in four seasons.

…led them to the NBA’s play-in tournament the past two years as the No. 10 seed. They were blown out in both play-in games, however, and never made the playoffs in Borrego’s four seasons.

Answer: they missed the playoffs.

And Frank Vogel is out as coach.

I saw reports this morning: apparently, everybody but Vogel knew yesterday he was going to be fired.

In three seasons with the team, Vogel went 127-98. In 11 seasons of professional coaching, he’s 431-289.

…

The Lakers were officially eliminated from postseason contention Tuesday, when they lost in Phoenix and the San Antonio Spurs won in Denver.
The Lakers would lose eight games in a row before winning against Oklahoma City in the home finale at [I’m not going to give them free advertising – DB] Arena.

Frank Martin out as basketball coach at the University of South Carolina.

Hired in 2012, Martin, 55, compiled a 171-147 (79-99 SEC) career record with the Gamecocks. The win total is the third most in program history, and his tenure was highlighted by the program’s only Final Four in 2017.

The team was 18-13 this season.

Been a busy weekend, both for me and for sports firings.

Will Wade out as men’s baskeball coach at LSU. Five seasons, 108-54 overall. But: the NCAA has informed LSU that they are investigating a total of 11 violations, including eight “level 1” violations.

Additionally, LSU basketball shares fault with the football program in an additional Level I allegation that LSU “failed to exercise institutional control and monitor the conduct and administration of its football and men’s basketball programs” from February 2012 through June 2020.

…

Wade was suspended at the tail end of the 2018-19 season after Yahoo Sports detailed a wiretapped conversation between him and now-convicted middleman Christian Dawkins. The conversation recorded by the FBI included Wade openly speaking about a “strong-ass offer” he made in the recruitment of former LSU guard and Baton Rouge native Javonte Smart in 2017.
This specific allegation is outlined in the NOA as the first of the seven charges against the men’s basketball team, and was determined to be a Level I violation. In the charge, the Complex Case Unit wrote in this instance Wade “violated the principles of ethical conduct and/or offered impermissible recruiting inducements in the form of cash payments and job offers in order to secure” an unnamed recruit, who is believed to be Smart.

Nino Giarratano out as baseball coach at the University of San Francisco. This is tied to a lawsuit by three former players accusing him of “persistent psychological abuse and repeated inappropriate sexual conduct”.

Tom Crean out as basketball coach of the Georgia Bulldogs. This one seems to have actually been a performance thing: he was 47-75 over four seasons, and they finished 6-26 this year.

Actually, no, I still can’t stand soccer.

But this is a fun story.

There was a massive fight at a soccer game between Queretaro and Atlas (who I gather are both teams in the Mexican Liga MX league) on Saturday. 26 people were injured.

Yesterday, punishments were handed down: Queretaro has to play at home with no spectators for one year, barras (supporter’s groups) are banned for three years, the owners were fined 1.5 million pesos ($70,450), and…

…the owners have to sell the team by the end of the year.

Queretaro’s ownership group (Gabriel Solares, Adolfo Ríos, Greg Taylor and Manuel Velarde) will also be banned from league-related activities for five years and the club will be returned to previous owners Grupo Caliente, which owns fellow Liga MX club Tijuana…
Grupo Caliente will be tasked with selling Queretaro by the end of this year, and if unable to do so, it will go under the ownership of Liga MX.

I’ve never heard of an owner being forced to sell a team before. I guess it may have happened in the past, but I’m not aware of it. MLB may have come close with Marge Schott, but they never actually pulled the trigger.

Edited to add: Mike the Musicologist cites Donald Sterling as a possible “forced to sell the team” owner. I’m going to give him the win on points for two reasons. First of all, I’m impressed that he remembered Donald Sterling: if there is a person who is even less of an NBA fan (or sports fan in general) than I am, it is MtM.

On April 29, NBA commissioner Adam Silver announced that Sterling had been banned from the league for life and fined $2.5 million, the maximum fine allowed by the NBA constitution. Silver stripped Sterling of virtually all of his authority over the Clippers, and banned him from entering any Clippers facility. He was also banned from attending any NBA games. The punishment was one of the most severe ever imposed on a professional sports team owner. Moreover, Silver stated that he would move to force Sterling to sell the team, based on a willful violation of the rules, which would require the consent of three-quarters, or 22, of the other 29 NBA team owners.

The thing is, it isn’t clear to me that he was actually forced to sell. There were suits and counter-suits, and his wife moved to sell the team – he claimed without his authorization – and it seems like the cases were dismissed before there was any vote or a forced sale by the NBA. All that seems clear is that Sterling’s wife managed to get the team sold off to Steve Ballmer before she was stripped of her ownership interest by league vote.

So even though it isn’t clear to me, my second reason for giving this to MtM on points is that the NBA seems to have come as close as any other sport ever has, and probably ever will (except Liga MX) to forcing an owner to sell a team. Certainly closer than baseball came with Schott.

Also:

The mascot of Brazilian league champions Atletico Mineiro has been banned for one game for “intimidatory” behaviour in last weekend’s city derby against Cruzeiro, the state football federation announced Tuesday.

Michael Fly fired as head basketball coach of Florida Gulf Coast University.

Fly went 21-11 this season, by far the best record of his tenure. He was 55-59 in his four years and will have the chance to coach if the Eagles are chosen for one of this month’s postseason tournaments such as the College Basketball Classic.

Derrin Hansen out as basketball coach at Omaha. He’d been coach for 17 seasons, but Omaha has only been a D1 team since 2015.

He was 253-260 overall, and 92-122 in D1 play. The team won five games this season and was 10-45 in the past two seasons.

Sam Scholl out in San Diego. 50-67 in “four plus” seasons, but the team was 15-16 this season.

Four Arizona State coaches are no longer with the program.

According to reports, offensive coordinator Zak Hill and tight ends coach Adam Breneman “resigned”: wide receivers coach Prentice Gill and secondary coach Chris Hawkins were fired.

Why? Everybody’s favorite reason: recruiting violations.

Sources told ESPN that part of the NCAA’s investigation involves Arizona State hosting prospects during the recruiting dead period, which lasted from March 2020 to June 1, 2021. FBS programs were prohibited from having recruits on campus during that period. Several sources in the Pac-12 told ESPN that Arizona State also faces allegations about recruiting practices that occurred when the dead period ended, including possible improper contact with prospects at an off-campus recruiting camp in June.