Poor Pat Gillick. No one believes him. He is the major leagues’ senior general manager – that means he has been a general manager longer than anyone else. He is in the World Series with his second team – the first team won two World Series. But he apparently has no credibility.

His problem is that he says he is retiring at the end of the month, but this is the fourth time he has said he is retiring, and none of the first three retirements stuck.

“I don’t believe him this time either,” said Gord Ash, who worked under Gillick in Toronto for 10 years and succeeded him there. “I told him the other day when I saw him. I said ‘You’re not going to retire.’ He said he is.”

Like Ash, Chuck Armstrong is skeptical. “We’re all waiting to see,” the president of the Seattle Mariners said. “I can’t see Pat Gillick fully retired. He loves the game so much and has so much passion for the game. I think he still has great contributions he can bring.”

Gillick turned 71 years old two months ago. That makes him old enough to be the father of most of the other general managers in the majors. He became a general manager before most of his peers were born.

He has two weeks left on his three-year contract with his current team, the Philadelphia Phillies, the World Series Phillies. Before this job, he was general manager of the Blue Jays for 17 years (1978-94), of the Baltimore Orioles for three years (96-98) and of the Mariners for four years (2000-03).  Obviously he missed a few teams, but there’s still time.

Gillick laughed when he heard the reactions to his impending retirement. He understands the reactions, but he said it’s time to go home. And where exactly is home? Now there’s an interesting question.

When Gillick was the Blue Jays general manager, he and his wife, Doris, lived in Toronto. Natural enough. But when he worked in Baltimore and in Seattle, they still lived in Toronto. Where do they live now that he works in Philadelphia?

“We’ve moved,” he said. “We moved almost two years ago. We live in Seattle now. I haven’t been home that much in the last few years. I’m 71 years old. I have to get home.”

Wherever he has been, Gillick has constructed successful teams. He won the World Series with the Blue Jays in 1992 and 93, and they haven’t been back to the World Series since; nor have they even won a division title.

The Orioles went to the playoffs in Gillick’s first two years with them, 1996 and 97, and not since. The Mariners did the same thing, in addition winning a league record 116 games in 2001. The Phillies have won two division titles in Gillick’s three years and are in the World Series for the first time since 1993.

“I was the Blue Jays general manager in 1993 when we beat Philadelphia, and now I’m the Phillies general manager for the first time back to the World Series since then,” Gillick said, finding the circumstances interesting.

Gillick does not boast or even talk about his successful career.

“That’s the kind of guy he is,” Ash said. “He’s never had an ego. He didn’t seek credit. He was a consensus guy. He always wanted everybody’s opinion. It was all part of the process.”

Gillick left the Blue Jays a year after their second World Series championship.

“He’s a guy who needs fresh challenges; that’s what stimulates him,” Ash said. “When he announced his retirement Paul Beeston (Blue Jays president) and I were on the West Coast and we read in the paper that Pat was going to retire. It caught us both by surprise. I think he had grown weary. He had met the challenges. I’m sure he wanted to get away from day-to-day stuff. He didn’t enjoy it that much. He enjoyed the big picture stuff.”

Succeeding Gillick as the Toronto general manager, Ash said, was like Aaron Rodgers following Brett Favre as the Green Bay Packers quarterback. “He was legendary,” Ash said.

After a year of retirement, Gillick came back, becoming the Orioles general manager under owner Peter Angelos, who would be the reason for Gillick’s next retirement. Despite two playoff appearances, Angelos was unhappy with Gillick and manager Davey Johnson, and both wound up leaving.

When he was asked about his highlights at each of his stops, Gillick laughed when the Orioles were mentioned. “A couple things stick out,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Armstrong, who brought Gillick out of his second retirement, called him the best general manager in baseball history after Branch Rickey.

“He’s a consummate professional,” the Mariners’ president said, “but what separates him from others is he has such incredible instincts on players. Pat would get a fistful of plane tickets in the off-season and go off to see free agents. He’d talk to them about what it would mean to become a Mariner. When he came back, he used the phrase ‘he had a good face,’ or ‘he didn’t have good face.’ That can’t be taught. He developed that over a lifetime in baseball.”

After four years, Gillick retired again. “He said he was retiring,” Armstrong said, “but he stayed around as a consultant for us. He did that with class. He didn’t interfere with Bill Bavasi, but if he could make suggestions he did.”

Gillick remained in general manager retirement for two years. Then the Phillies lured him back to the job, and here they are in the World Series. Gillick displayed his class in the immediate aftermath of the Phillies’ victory over the Dodgers in the league series. In the Fox television post-game interview Gillick said his predecessor, Ed Wade,” deserved “a lot of credit” for the Phillies’ success.

“He put together the nucleus of this team,” Gillick said in a telephone interview, naming the many players Wade brought to the Phillies. “These are the guys who came under his watch. We filled in the pieces around them.” The team’s post-season roster has 10 players who weren’t on last year’s post-season roster, Gillick noted, “but the nucleus has to be there.”

If the Phillies are in next year’s post-season, it will be under a new general manager, probably Ruben Amaro Jr. Gillick will be home in Seattle.

“I can’t seem to get a club close to home other than the Blue Jays,” Gillick said.

But that condition could change soon. The Mariners are searching for a new general manager. Armstrong has narrowed his list of finalists to four, but because Gillick’s Philadelphia contract expires in less than two weeks, he may decide to wait and talk to Gillick. He declined to talk about that possibility, but it makes complete sense.

The Mariners need a talented general manager to fix the problems that made them the worst team in the American League this year, and they would be far better off with Gillick than with an inexperienced general manager.

Sinking to the Mets’ Level

If misery loves company, the Mets have plenty of it. Given what happened in the league playoff series last week, the Mets are not alone in suffering bullpen pain.

First, they saw the bullpen blow up the Dodgers in Game 4 of the National League series. Cory Wade and Jonathan Broxton (the Dodgers’ closer) each gave up a two-run home run in the eighth inning, turning a 5-3 lead into a 7-5 loss.

Then they saw Manny Delcarmen allow five runs in a third of an inning, letting an already difficult game for the Red Sox get away completely. But the relief efforts that had to warm the Mets’ hearts came in the American League’s Game 5. Each bullpen contributed.

With the Red Sox behind the Rays, 5-0, Delcarmen relieved at the start of the seventh and walked the only two batters he faced. Jonathan Papelbon, the ace Boston closer, then made an unusually early appearance, presumably to try to keep the score right where it was, and gave up a double to B.J. Upton that sent both runners scampering home.

It was the only hit that Papelbon permitted in two innings, but it increased the Rays’ lead to 7-0. The Rays’ bullpen, though, was still to do its dirty work.

Scott Kazmir left after allowing no runs and two hits in six innings – sounds like a Johan Santana game, right? –  and the Rays’ relief corps took over.

Grant Balfour lasted two-thirds of an inning and gave up four runs. Dan Wheeler came next, and the Red Sox scored three runs against him in the eighth for a 7-7 tie. Finally, it was J.P. Howell’s turn in the ninth, and the Red Sox scored the winning run.

It was nothing that was new to the Mets. They had seen it all too often this year, and that’s why they were sitting at home watching other bullpens implode.

The Magic Turns Black

In a full-page newspaper advertisement last Sunday, Fox television asked the question “Can Joe Torre tap into his post-season magic against Philly?”

Which magic was that, the magic that produced a Game 7 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks in the final inning of the 2001 World Series or the loss to the Florida Marlins in the 2003 World Series? Or was it the magic that jarred the Yankees with three consecutive first-round knockouts after the Red Sox humiliated them in 2004 by overcoming their three games to none lead in the league series?

Or was it to be the magic Torre would weave through his bullpen the next night in the Dodgers’ fourth game of the N.L. series with the Phillies? That was the game that Torre left Jonathan Broxton, supposedly his No. 1 reliever, in the bullpen in the eighth inning, and brought in rookie Cory Wade, who gave up a game-tying two-run home run to Shane Victorino and a single, then brought in Broxton, who gave up a game-losing two-run homer to Matt Stairs?

If Torre did anything magical, it was to keep the Dodgers playing during the regular season, when they had a losing record and trailed Arizona, until general manager Ned Colletti performed a real magic trick, acquiring Manny Ramirez, who performed physical feats of a phenomenal nature and carried Torre’s team to the post-season.

Contrary to Fox’s marketing view, if Torre wants to retain his card in the magicians union, he will need to do better than he did against the Phillies.

From Coach to Scapegoat

The Yankees have made a good start to their premature off-season. They figured out why they failed to extend their post-season run to 14 years and exorcised that nasty little devil. They fired their third base coach, Bobby Meacham. Apparently if Meacham had waved more runners home, the Yankees would have won more games.

Or maybe the Yankees don’t blame Meacham for their disappointing third-place, out-of-the-playoffs finish but felt that Meacham did not do a good job in his first year with them.

Or perhaps the move was a message for the manager, Joe Girardi, who brought Meacham with him when he became the manager a year ago. Maybe the Yankees were unhappy with the job Girardi did but couldn’t really fire him one season after hiring him to replace Joe Torre.

George Steinbrenner often fired coaches when he wanted to fire the manager but felt, for some reason, that he couldn’t. He would instead fire a coach who was close to the manager as a warning or a wakeup call.

“Sure, I remember,” said Meacham, who was a victim of the owner’s impulsive behavior when he was a rookie shortstop for the Yankees in 1984. “That was the way it used to be.”

The Yankees haven’t said why they fired Meacham. They haven’t even told him.

“I was shocked,” Meacham said in a telephone interview Saturday evening. “They told me Monday. Joe called me and then Cash. It was surprising. They gotta do what they gotta do. They both told me I did a good job. There was something else that was there. They didn’t think it was going to help the team in the future. I don’t know if that meant Cash wanted to bring somebody else in or if they thought someone else could do a better job.”

General manager Brian Cashman has declined to give a reason for Meacham’s dismissal. Meacham, whom Steinbrenner banished to the minors after his error cost the Yankees a game early in the 1984 season, said he heard that Cashman said he didn’t think saying why would be fair to him.

“That makes me wince a little bit,” Meacham said. “To say ‘I don’t think it would be fair to Bobby to say,’ why? He has my blessing to say. Be my guest. I have no problem. I don’t mind facing the music. How do I explain what happened to my future employer if the people who know what happened don’t say it? I don’t want my future employer to be gun shy about hiring me because of someone else. If they don’t think I did a good job at third, say it. If they don’t think I did a good job in other ways, say it.”

According to a person familiar with the Yankees’ decision, they didn’t think Meacham did a good job coaching third. “Girardi defended him,” the person said, “but otherwise everyone, players and coaches, were pretty unanimous in feeling he didn’t do a good job.”

Cashman, however, maintained his silence on the matter. “I’m not going to say anything publicly; I have no need to,” Cashman said by telephone Sunday. “If Bobby wants to know, I’ll tell him. If he has prospective employers, they can reach out to me and call me.”

Meacham, 48 years old, said he thought he did a good job, both at third base and as the infield coach.

“Maybe I didn’t do a good job with the infielders,” he said. “But stats wise, all four guys were as good as or better than the year before. Jason played 115 games at first; he played only 15 the year before. We had the best fielding team in the league. I’m not a real stats guy other than wins, but I’m trying to figure out how to answer questions for potential employers especially.”

The Yankees indeed made the fewest errors in the American League (83), and Jason Giambi started 112 games at first base compared with 16 last year.

Meacham said he thinks he knows why he was fired, but he didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t think anybody is served by my assumptions being out there,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt anybody. If I’m the sacrificial lamb, I’m a big boy.”

“It happened 20 years ago,” he added, referring to his 1984 demotion.

Meacham hopes to get a coaching job elsewhere and has talked to an old friend, Bob Geren, manager of the Athletics, who have an opening.

“Today is the first day I felt I’m over it,” he said of his dismissal. “Let’s move on.

I’m going to go from here, learn to take it in stride and move on. The only way I’ll change is if somebody is trying to make themselves look good at my expense. I don’t have a beef with anybody. I just want another job. I wish the best for those guys. I enjoyed working with them. I loved being there.”