This might seem like semantics, but it isn’t. The Red Sox are not firing Grady Little. They are declining the club option for 2004. There is a major, yet subtle difference there. Think of it like this:

Jeff Suppan comes over from Pittsburgh. He pitches ok, nothing special, but nothing horrible (he was the 87th best AL pitcher with Boston, 55th best pitcher in baseball Boston and Pittsburgh combined, between Kyle Loshe and Syndey Ponson w/Baltimore). This is below expectation of the front office. Now instead of picking up Suppan’s option for 2004, they buy him out. They didn’t release him (fired), they just let him walk away.

That is what Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein are doing with Grady Little.

From all accounts, Grady is a nice guy. The players love him, and the press likes him. However, the only public support of him have been two guys that aren’t Red Sox right now (John Burkett, and Todd Walker, who are free agents), and Manny Ramirez, who reportedly cried when Shea Hillenbrand was traded. Grady’s faults are archived on this site and many others. He was clueless when it came to the bullpen, and something that annoyed me was that when he made a decision, he never took blame for it not working out. Even when the death knell was released upon him from Aaron Boone, Grady said that leaving in Pedro, and throwing Wakefield to the lions was the right call.

Don’t cry for Grady Little, folks. He’s a folk hero among baseball people now. Those evil statheads, run by Grand Poobah stathead Bill James have dispatched another Good Baseball Man. Little will get a job soon enough. There are rumors swirling around Baltimore saying he will be down in Charm City soon enough. Grady Little will fall on his feet, and will soon get a job in baseball. Maybe then he can be another ghost that can haunt the Red Sox. Or maybe he won’t learn or change, as Good Baseball Men are, and he can be happily staring into space as his starting pitcher dies on the mound, and there is no one up in the bullpen.

That will always be Grady Little’s baseball legacy in Boston. Grinning like an idiot, while the world collapses.