The Colorado Rockies introduced a new menu item at Coors Field last Sunday. It’s called the Sacrificial Lamb.

Bud Black, the Rockies all-team leader in managerial wins, was let go on Sunday following the team’s historically bad start to the 2025 baseball season.

Despite a rare victory in Black’s final game, Colorado’s 7-34 record is tied with the 1988 Baltimore Orioles for the worst start in major league history.

Did Bud Black deserve to be fired?

Absolutely.

On top of the historically bad start, Bud Black had been responsible for seven straight losing seasons, including 94 losses in 2022, 103 losses in 2023, and 101 losses last season.

I recently referred to the manager as Bud Blackmail, because how else could he have kept his job that long.

Last time I saw someone spend that many years at one job, get paid that much money, and accomplish so very little – they were sitting in Congress.

Forget Congress, they have term limits. Bud Black was employed for 15 years as a major league pitcher, spent another nine seasons managing the San Diego Padres, and then spent the last nine with the Rockies. That’s practically a lifetime appointment.

But firing Bud Black to try and solve the Rockies’ problems is like replacing the chef on the Titanic.

The problem is a little bigger than that.

As Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts stated, “I don’t think Casey Stengel could change the outcome of that ballclub.”

• Pretty cold firing a manager after the longest winning streak of the season.

Credit via Facebook.com

• I was very surprised when Bud Black got fired because I didn’t think that Charlie Monfort got rid of anybody. I just assumed that the organization would just move his office somewhere and stop paying him like they did to Milton Waddams in Office Space.

• It’s Colorado. Firing up some bud is commonplace. Firing a Bud, not so much.

• Monfort had Black fired on a Sunday, but only after his GM informed him that a “Black Friday” would not include any additional discounts.

• Considering that the batting coaches have the team hitting .217, the pitching coaches have a staff with an ERA of 5.77, and the general manager’s only contribution so far has been the disastrous signing of Kris Bryant. I’m guessing that Bud Black simply drew the short straw.

• I don’t see why it was so difficult to replace Bud Black. I replaced Bud Black with Johnny Walker Black about seven years ago.

• The Rockies also fired bench coach Mike Redmond, and promoted third base coach, Warren Schaeffer, to interim manager. Someone better tell Charlie Monfort that an interim manager is not the same as an intern manager. He still needs to pay him.

• Promoting the third base coach makes a lot of sense. The way the Rockies’ offense struggles, they probably don’t need a coach over there anyway.

• Maybe the Rockies should make Kris Bryant the new third base coach. It’s not like he’s doing anything these days, figuratively and literally.

• I’m not sure the Rockies will ever get over the signing of Kris Bryant. I get that Bill Schmidt is having trouble finding the next Nolan Arenado, but he can’t even find the next Nolan Jones.

• If Charlie Monfort just saved even more money by replacing Bud Black with an inexperienced Warren Schaeffer, does that make him a Bud Light?

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• Warren Schaeffer, hunh? Guess Morris Buttermaker was too expensive.

• Now that Bud Black is unemployed, he’ll probably just go to the park every day, sit on a bench, do very little, and wait for his paycheck to show up in the mail. Hold on. Isn’t that what he’s been doing for the last seven years anyway?

• Bud Black will probably wake up tomorrow, walk to Starbuck’s, order a coffee and a muffin, and then the following day, order a muffin and then a coffee, hoping a change in the order makes a difference.

• I’m not saying that the Rockies are a racist organization. But the number of Blacks in the major leagues continues to be on the decline.

• The business of baseball is complicated, so lay off Charlie Monfort and Bill Schmidt already. But give them a decent severance package when you do it.

Credit via YouTube

• Let’s be real. The fans didn’t help matters when 37,000 showed up to Coors Field on a Saturday to watch the Padres win 21-0. The Monfort’s assume that the Rockies are the MLB equivalent of the Savannah Bananas, an entertaining cash machine. The reality is – we’re more like the team that’s playing them.

Let’s give it up one more time for Bud Black. The smartest manager in the history of baseball. Eighteen seasons as managers for the Padres and Rockies, thirteen of them with a losing record, but apparently likeable enough to get paid while doing it.

This Bud’s for you.

Credit via ispot.tv

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Alan Tapley The Athletic Supporter

Alan Tapley is an educator, author, and blogger who has lived just outside of Boulder for the last twenty years.  His published work includes two novels, two children’s books, a series of cartoons in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and multiple sports related articles. His love for family and the state of Colorado is only matched by one thing, his passion for sports.  The first baseball game he ever attended was at Wrigley Field, before there were lights.  At the final Bronco game at the old Mile High, he allegedly cut out a piece of his seat in the South stands.  But regardless of being here for the Avalanche’s last Stanley Cup, the Rockies only World Series appearance, and all the Broncos’ Super Bowl Victories, his wife never fails to remind him that he wasn’t at the University of Colorado in 1990, like she was.  The year the Buffs football team won the National Championship