Psst, may I have your Delta frequent flier number before we begin, please?...
1. Of E-mails, One-Way Flights and Fredi Gonzalez & Friends
Knives are never sharp enough when the suits decide to ax the manager, but what the Atlanta Braves did with a painfully dull piece of cutlery last week was major-league awkward.
John Hart, the Braves' president of baseball operations, and Chris Coppolella, general manager, summoned Fredi Gonzalez last Tuesday morning to sack him.
Except, late Monday night, a Delta airline ticket popped into the soon-to-be-former manager's e-mail notifying him that his flight from Pittsburgh back home to Atlanta the next day was all set.