Minor Leagues Beat Writer
Chicago Sports Online
The purge of Chicago’s minor league personnel continued this week as the Black Sox dismissed the manager of its Short-Season Class A affiliate - Gustavo Hernandez - after two years of relatively mediocre leadership.
Black Sox General Manager Benedetta “Benny” Vitale hired 47-year-old Ernesto García to manage the San Pedro de Macoris Green Sox.
Although García has no professional management experience, Vitale said he received superior grades from the team’s personnel search consultants, the Kocherschmeltz Group.
Ernesto García
“Please notice that his scores are all printed in bright blue – the best you can do in the Kocherschmeltz Group’s proprietary color-coding system.”
Hernandez, who compiled a 74-78 record in his two years at the helm of the Green Sox, did not fare as well in the K-Group evaluations, Vitale said.
“No, indeed,” she said, shaking her head. “Bright orange and ‘below average’ influence, I’m afraid. We cannot have orange managers leading our teams.
She also noted that Hernandez was earning $120,000 per year – a relatively princely sum among managers in the lower minors.
“My brother-in-law (Sox owner Vinnie Vitale) sometimes lets his generosity run away with him, and he did so there when he approved my predecessor’s irresponsible contract proposal for Mr. Hernandez,” Benny Vitale said. “Those days are over. We signed Mr. García to a 4-year contract at a much more fiscally responsible $54,000 per year.
“To sum up, then, we have gone from a bright orange manager earning $120,000 per year to a bright blue manager earning less than half that amount.
“This is the Kocherschmeltz way, ladies and gentlemen. We look forward to applying the K-Group’s methodology to our on-field talent in the very near future.”
García, who was en route to San Pedro on Monday, could not be reached for comment.
Hernandez, however, seemed genuinely bewildered by the turn of events.
Gustavo Hernandez
Hernandez said he pressed his case with Sox Asst. General Manager Bill McGuffin, but was told the decision was out of his control.
“All he kept saying was that I was ‘bright orange,' whatever the hell that means. Well, OK. I don’t want to work somewhere I’m not wanted, but that group over there has gone a little nuts. At least you could talk to (former GM Vic) Caleca. Now, a lot of what he said was just goofy, but at least he had some humanity about him. These guys? I’m not so sure.”
Benny Vitale just pursed her lips when told of Hernandez’s comments.
“I assure you and Mr. Hernandez that we are human to a fault,” she said. “But we are results-oriented humans, and he did not deliver results. And I remind you, he was bright orange. That we cannot, and will not, have. We are true Kocherschmeltz blue.”