Phillies To Hire Pat Gillick As New General Manager

The Phillies will announce today at noon that 68-year-old Pat Gillick is their new General Manager, replacing former GM Ed Wade, who was fired on Oct. 10.

Gillick has had a successful career as a GM, including two World Series championships with the Toronto Blue Jays, one of which came in a victory of our very own Phillies. Perhaps Gillick can coax Joe Carter out of retirement and plug him into centerfield.

Gillick won the job over former Astros GM Gerry Hunsicker, who was considered the other frontrunner for the gig. Peter Gammons says that Hunsicker is the frontrunner for the recently vacated Red Sox GM position. Gillick also beat out Phillies staffers Mike Arbuckle and Ruben Amaro, Jr. Some are speculating that Amaro will stay on as Assistant GM and learn from Gillick, eventually taking over for him. And it may not be long - while he's no Larry Brown, Gillick has only spent a few years in his past posts at Baltimore and Seattle. We're not sure why an average player who suckled at the teat of learned from Ed Wade is being groomed as our team's next GM, but hey, we're bloggers. What do we know?

Gillick will be introduced as GM at a press conference today at noon. We're not sure if self-proclaimed GM candidate and radio personality Howard Eskin will be on hand to ask the question, "Why are you better for the job than me?"

One thing is sure, however: we won't be listening to Howard's show to find out.