The 2002 baseball season came to a close Sunday night in Anaheim. The World Series effectively ended Saturday night when the Angels came back to win game six, 6-5.

Going into the Giants clubhouse after the game, the players all put up a brave front saying that the late inning loss wouldn’t carry over to Sunday night.

They were wrong. The Giants came out flat, notwithstanding the poor pitching by Livan Hernandez, the team didn’t hit at all and barely resembled the machine that scored 16 runs on Thursday night.

Saturday night’s comeback win was one of the top ten games I’ve ever seen and definitely made me feel what a world series really was .

Now, the A’s have a new manager, Ken Macha, and the Giants will probably have a new boss next week.

Click “read more” for some baseball talk.Ken Macha will not be much different than Art Howe. Both men are career baseball people who have a profound respect for the game.

Art Howe managed 1133 games for the A’s, winning 600. Macha has not managed a single big league game in his life, other than a few when Art was not available.

Macha has much to learn which will be evident in the way he handles the A’s bull pen. Making pitching changes is always dicey at best, but when you haven’t been the one to make the call to the bull pen full time, it is even harder.

I’m not saying Macha won’t be a success at some point, but trust me, it won’t be easy his first year. He has plenty to learn as all the game decisions will be his, meaning hit and run, bunt, steals, the intricacies of the game (if he is allowed to do those things).

His ultimate success will depend on the GM obtaining a lead off hitter, a reliable bench, a catcher, a center fielder, etc, etc., the things I have mentioned since the season ended.

A manager is like an artist, he paints his picture, like a chef cooking a meal, he mixes the ingrdeients, we’ ll see what sort of artist or chef Ken Macha is around June 15th when interleague play begins, at that point the season will be deep enough to get a read on the new man.

Being the manager is a heckuva lot different than being the bench coach, just watch and see.

Peter Magowan still can’t come out and say to Dusty Baker “I want you back” and mean it. I think Dusty senses this reluctance and will be going elsewhere next season. He has told everyone within earshot that he will leave, now he may have painted himself into a corner even if the Giants finally do extend the olive branch.

Next year’s Giants team will need a second baseman, center fielder, catcher, and a right fielder for openers. This hasn’t been lost on Dusty either knowing the only reliable hitter he can count on next season is 39 year old to be Barry Bonds.

It still amazes me that the A’s and the Giants draw over 5 million people, one gets to the World Series, and now lose their field managers for no apparent reason.

What am I missing here?

Where will Dusty go? If money is all he cares about then Chicago will be the place. If he wants to manage in the NL and stay home, then maybe SF is still in the picture, if he wants to hunt and fish in his spare time, then Seattle is where he will land.

Seattle has been written off by the media as a likely place for Dusty because they don’t seem to want to meet his asking price, but it is funny that they still haven’t named a manager. Are they waiting for Dusty?

I think the Mariners front office would like to control some of the damage created by Lou Piniella’s departure, they can do that by hiring Baker.

Makes me wonder why the A’s didn’t ask for some compensation for allowing their manager to leave? The A’s are always crying poor mouth and then let their manager leave without a whisper of compensation.

You’ll never get a true answer on that one from the A’s so I’ll let the obvious go, that the GM would do anything to get Howe out of town, at any cost, just so the GM could appear to blame someone for the A’s losses in the playoffs.

Following the A’s logic of letting assets go if it appears they won’t be able to sign that person because of the market, I guess they will let Tejada go early if a team assures Miguel that it will pay him 80 million dollars right now, why stand in his way? They claim they let Art go for that same reason.

I won’t pose these rhetorical questions anymore, suffice it to say one Bay Area team already has its new manager for the flimsiest reasons imagineable, now much to the chagrin of the public, can the other be far behind?

The World Series was a spectacle every night. I learned just what a grind the postseason can be on pitchers and really everyone else connected to the game.

I have heard the comment that Abner Doubleday knew what he was doing when he laid out the first diamond and the bases were 90′ apart, baseball knew what is was doing when it made the world series the best of seven games, today on October 29th, I can finally say I’ve seen enough baseball for awhile.

I’ll write the Daily Dish from time to time when significant events happen, I welcome your articles or comments during the winter whenever you feel like it.

Over 70,000 people hit the web site since we began around April 1st, amazing, and I thank you for the support.

It’s less than four months to the start of spring training, I need a rest.

See you shortly.