Not for a moment, am I shocked that Wayne Krivsky got the 'boot' today. But I am shocked by the timing. You might have to look hard, long and deep to find a major league baseball team that has fired its general manager just 21 games in to a season. Jim Bowden's mid season firing in 2003 was out of the ordinary. Usually, most GM's are launched in the off season.

But the fact that Krivsky, a really engaging guy incidentally, was fired is not a shock. Walt Jocketty has been a "GM in waiting" since Bob Castellini hired him in January. In St. Louis, for 12 years, Jocketty was the consumate baseball general manager. Most of his trades involved sending promising minor league talent to other teams for established veterans. I don't think he'll do that here, not yet. But I wouldn't be surprised to see him place his hand print (foot print?) on the roster soon. He has some big decision to make, along with Castellini.

The owner likes Adam Dunn. But does he like him enough to lay about $60 million on him for the next four years? Bringing back Ken Griffey, Junior at $16 million next season wasn't going to happen, regardless who the GM is. But will Jocketty want to renegotiate a longer deal in exchange for less money with Junior?

As for Krivsky, I hope he lands another GM job in his career. He made some bold moves here, and some that were doomed from the start. Getting hoodwinked by predecessor Jim Bowden on a trade for relief pitching in 2006 didn't help him. But on the whole, says espn.com's Rob Neyer, Krivsky did well.

And Richard Justice, an old acquaintace of mine from the "DC Days", thinks the move will pay off big for the Reds. Justice has this on sportingnews.com.

His immediate concern has to be the performance of Bronson Arroyo, who was lit up again Wednesday night. Arroyo hasn't made it out of the sixth inning in any of his starts. Last Friday, against the Brewers, it took him 100 pitches to make it through the fifth. Wednesday night, against the Astros, Arroyo lasted just two outs into the fourth, allowing ten hits and eight earned runs. And he needed 91-pitches to accompish that.

The NFL draft is Saturday. Another videocast below from our good friend, Mike Florio of profootballtalk.com. Today, Mike is scoping out the position the Bengals hope to cash in on in round one: defensive tackles.

If Sedrick Ellis is there at #9 when the Bengals pick, I don't see how they pass on him.

My man, Chick Ludlwig of the Dayton Daily News is on the same page as me. If you give in to Chad Johnson's antics, you're just asking for trouble down the road.

Check out my web site: www.kenbroo.com. I'll have another Broo View Podcast posted within the next 24 hours. But the latest installment is on the front page. And you can access any of the archived Broo View Podcast in the "Podcast & More" section.

So the Reds now have two things the Bengals don’t have: general managers. Maybe they could loan one to the Bengals.

When the word came down Friday that the Reds had lured Walt Jocketty out of his short-lived retirement, my first reaction was…whoa, wouldn’t want to be Wayne Krivsky. Look at what Jocketty did in St. Louis. He only built the team that has more regular season wins than any other team on that half of the baseball equation. And there was that little piece of hardware the Cardinals won a couple of falls ago.

Jocketty was nothing in St. Louis if not the ultimate trade merchant. And he seemed to have an uncanny ability to trade nothing to get something. Sure the Mark Mulder deal stunk. Danny Haren will be a star for a long time in baseball and Mulder seems at the edge of washed up.

But how about these names that found their way to St. Louis on Jocketty’s watch: Mark McGwire, Scott Rolen, Larry Walker and Edgar Renteria.

His critics will argue that Jocketty built those Cardinals teams and worked those trades at the expense of his minor league system. The Cardinals had to trade for Mulder because their minor league pitching was awful.

But he also had the brains…and the scouts, to draft baseball’s best player at the moment: Albert Puljos.

With Walt Jocketty, there’s good with the bad. But there appears to be much more good.

But you wonder about Krivsky. He’s been on the job only a couple of years. So his drafts, unlike Jocketty’s, are tough to score right now. But they both seem to be cut from the same cloth. Jocketty was aggressive pursuing big name players. Krivsky has been aggressive trying to rebuild his bullpen.

My guess is Wayne Krivsky isn’t comfortable about all this. Even though he’s Bob Castellini’s hand picked general manager, Krivsky can’t be happy with Castellini bringing in the former GM of the National League team of the last decade and the former GM of the team Castellini once had a piece of. Jocketty will report directly to Castellini. Not good for Wayne-O.

But if Castellini can keep everybody in the sandbox happy, this has a chance of working out. Think about it: Jocketty’s experience and aggressive nature helping Krivsky with trade evaluations and draft pick assessments. Both have keen eyes, both have excellent contacts. It could be magic.

But it could also be a disaster. Invariably, when any company hires someone to over see the work of another with equal status, the atmosphere is tense. Distrust is the immediate by-product and camps can form. Jocketty apparently was in the middle of that scenario, when Cardinals owner, Bill DeWitt brought in a vice president for player development last season. Reportedly, that’s what led to Jocketty’s resignation in October.

If this is Castelllini’s way of lighting a fire under Krivsky, he’s done it. Never comfortable in front of the media, the current Reds GM appeared more uneasy than ever Friday. But Bob Castellini didn’t build a produce empire by fostering office politics. He knows, I’m sure, that if his front office gets bogged down in ‘camps’, he hurts his product. And remember, just about everyone in that baseball operations office is a Krivsky hire.

I would bet, that Castellini has told both Jocketty and Krivsky to play nice.
If they do, this will be a great ‘play’ for our ‘local nine’. If they don’t, it’ll be a great ‘play’ for the controversy loving media.

As another famous Ohio University alum likes to say...things that make you go hmmmm.

The St. Louis Cardinals fired General Manager Walt Jocketty today. Fired the guy who constructed one of the more solid franchises in baseball. Jocketty and his owner, Bill DeWitt, haven't seen eye to eye in over a year. Now, Jocketty is out. The current Reds' owner, Bob Castellini, is a former Cardinals minority owner. In fact, he's been a business partner of DeWitt's in St. Louis and in Baltimore, when they both were minorty shareholders with Peter Angelos. They also were in business with President Bush, as minority shareholders with the Texas Rangers, back in the mid-90's.

Would Castellini pick up the phone and call his buddy DeWitt (they both live in the Cincinnati suburb of Indian Hill) and ask him all about Jocketty? And if Jocketty and DeWitt didn't part by tossing grenades at each other, would Castellini then entertain the idea of signing Jocketty as his GM in Cincinnati, knowing that might be the carrot to lure Tony LaRussa here to manage the Reds. Current GM, Wayne Krivsky, would have to be sent packing. But to get a package deal of the best GM-Manager tandem in baseball, is that not a price worth paying?

Things that make you go, hmmmmm.

Check out my latest NFL podcast at www.theflypod.com. I do the show with a guy named Matt, who's still learning the broadcasting ropes. But together, we break down the latest issues in the NFL. The show is call The Ultimate NFL Cybershow and it's new, every Wednesday and on www.theflypod.com national page.