Poor, Poor, Wally Backman

When watching the Cubs/Diamondbacks with my roommate, we both can't help but laugh whenever the cameras show Bob Melvin.

For Melvin, as he and I and anyone who endured the 2003-04 Mariners knows, is a consummate fool. Yet, somehow, here he is, having lucked into managing a playoff team.

So my roommate asked, "I wonder what Wally Backman thinks?"

Backman, you'll remember, was the man the Diamondbacks hired in November '04--picking him over Bob Melvin. But Backman never managed a game.

You see, he'd failed to divulge some run-ins with the law, and with bankruptcy court, and so the Dbacks fired him just four days after hiring him, and went with Melvin, their second choice.

I called up Backman's name on Wikipedia to see what he's doing now, and the results weren't pretty.

Backman isn't in jail or anything, he is, in fact, managing...but he's managing...wait for it...

The South Georgia Peanuts.

Yes, the South Georgia Peanuts of the independent South Coast League.

And what makes it even sadder, somehow, and I'm not sure why, is that the South Georgia Peanuts won the independent South Coast League. And Backman, as you'll see below, was named Manager of the Year.



It pains me to think of Backman--an Oregon native who finished his playing career with the M's--sitting at home, watching the eminently clueless Melvin on television, knowing that he could be there, one game away the NLCS. And something tells me that polishing his South Coast League Manager of the Year trophy is small consolation.