Miami --
Days before the one-year anniversary of his dismissal as Braves manager, Fredi Gonzalez stood at Marlins Park on Thursday and searched for the right word to describe the months that followed his firing. He sent inquiries to every team that had not fired him and didn’t get so much as a courtesy call, though he did at least get a few emailed rejections. Of those, he was appreciative.
“I think I was kind of — what’s the word, not humbled but …” he said, trying to come up with the right word for rejected and confused. He’s the Marlins’ third-base coach now, and as he spoke of being fired and not getting offers for months, Braves players trickled out of the visiting dugout, one by one, to come say hi and see how their former manager was doing. Gonzalez joked and chatted with each, then got back to his uneasy 2016 summer.
“Like, I didn’t get a phone call. From anybody,” he said. “Whether to be coaching or managing. (Marlins owner) Jeffrey (Loria) was the only one who called me. I reached out to 29 other teams. This was the only team that — no, I take that back, the Giants had something if (Phil) Nevin would have gotten the Diamondbacks (managerial) job, there would have been a possibility I could have joined (Giants manager Bruce) Bochy’s staff. But that was a long shot.”
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