The Paul O’Neill Line

Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

Former Red rumored for manager’s job

I’m sure you heard or read yesterday, but it seems that there was some sort of online disagreement on the news regarding Paul O’Neill and the word he was now in the mix for the Reds managerial position.

Here’s how the ball got started:

As you can see, Kay tweeted this at 5:13 PM.

An hour and 20 minutes later, C. Trent Rosecrans uses Kay’s tweet in a post and adds this…

Reds general manager Walt Jocketty has only confirmed that current pitching coach Bryan Price and Triple-A manager Jim Riggleman are candidates for the Reds’ manager job that was created last week when the team fired Dusty Baker.

Might have been enough to put out the flames on this, right? Hardly the case as about 45 minutes later, this headline appears on SB Nation.

“Paul O’Neill interviews for Reds managerial job, per report”

The report noted in the post bearing this headline is Kay’s tweet. Not sure how “spoken with” and “interviewed” are necessarily the same. You can speak to someone over the phone. I would think that an interview entails a face-to-face meeting.

At 7:44 PM, John Fay posted a quick denial from the Reds.

Just before 10 PM, Andrew Marchand of ESPN New York updated an article about O’Neill and the Reds opening. Within that, Marchand has a couple of quotes from O’Neill about the Reds, but he also references Kay breaking this news. During Kay’s radio show, he reported that Reds CEO Bob Castellini had reached out to O’Neill. I still don’t get “interview” out of this.

Here’s Marchand’s first quote:

“I would love to sit down and find out what their thoughts are,” O’Neill told ESPN New York on Wednesday evening. “There are basically two organizations in my life, the Reds and the Yankees. Anytime you live in the city, you understand and see what happens in an organization.”

O’Neill and his family still live in Cincinnati. And still no mention of an interview. O’Neill said he would love to “sit down”.

What O’Neill said in reference to the Reds is encouraging.

“It is not a rebuilding situation,” O’Neill said. “They are a very, very good team. I think anybody would be interested in taking a good team and winning a World Series.”

Mark Sheldon then produces an article referring to Kay’s tweet and the quotes from Marchand’s article. Sheldon would later tweet that a Reds spokesman denied the report.

When Castellini hired Dusty, he went with a big name and a guy with MLB managerial experience. That’s not to say the Reds could change that course this time as neither Price, who is considered the front-runner for the job, nor O’Neill foot that bill. And Price, Riggleman and O’Neill aren’t big names within the MLB manager’s circle.

Also, since the Reds still owe Baker somewhere around $3.5MM, it’s not a stretch that they could go for a less expensive option.

If you doubt a guy with no MLB experience, look only to St. Louis and Mike Matheny.

If anything, O’Neill can teach the outfielders this nifty move…