Nottle fired by Ottawa
By Terry Hersom Journal sports editor | Posted: Friday, August 01, 2008
Just when things were starting to turn around for his first-year Ottawa Rapidz baseball team, the independent Can-Am League club has fired Manager Ed Nottle, the former skipper for the Sioux City Explorers.
Nottle, who spent 10 seasons as the field manager in Sioux City, was reportedly informed of his dismissal Tuesday night, just as he was preparing to rejoin the team following a leave of absence to be with his ailing wife in Evansville, Ind.
The Rapidz, last in the eight-team league's first-half standings with a 13-34 record, had rebounded in second-half play, posting a 7-8 mark with a five-game winning streak before a Wednesday afternoon setback at league-leading Atlantic City.
Nottle, though, missed all five games in the win streak along with Wednesday's loss because his wife, Patty, who has had a long battle with leukemia, was undergoing tests last Friday and again on Monday.
"I absolutely did the right thing,'' said Nottle, defending his visit to Evansville for the Ottawa Sun. "My daughter called me and was worried we might get bad news, and after 42 years of marriage, and I'm gone most of the time anyway, if she was going to get bad news, I didn't want her to have to hear it alone.''
In contrast to her husband's job situation, Mrs. Nottle received favorable reports on both her leukemia as well as concerns about her heart.
"In all my years of managing, I never wanted to succeed more than I did here in Ottawa,'' Nottle told the Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday. "I have been treated like a king here by the people in this city. I can't begin to tell you how well I have been treated.
"I made a statement that Ottawa would be the last place I ever managed. I guess I lied. I wanted it to be that way, but I will manage again. But some day this can be the jewel of independent baseball. This city and this facility and these fans can make it that way.''
Ottawa Stadium, with a capacity of over 10,000, became the new team's home after the Canadian capital lost the Philadelphia Phillies' Class AAA International League farm club to Allentown, Pa.
However, it was Can-Am League Commissioner Miles Wolff who got the new franchise started, committing the league to operating the club until local owners could be found. The league had footed most of the bills last year for a traveling team, the Grays, that played its entire schedule on the road.
So, Wolff was pleasantly surprised when Ottawa businessmen Rick Anderson and Rob Hall from the online DVD rental company "Zip.ca'' stepped forward in mid-April. Nottle, hired in early March, was already on the job.
In a statement released to Ottawa media on Wednesday, Hall said, "The decision to part company with Ed came only after long and careful deliberation. Ed has helped the Rapidz take root in Ottawa, but a manager is ultimately judged by his team's performance on the field and we felt it necessary to make a change at this time.''
Nottle, 68, was in his 49th season in professional baseball. He has toiled nearly all of that time in the minor leagues, voluntarily relinquishing a one-year stint as the Oakland Athletics' bullpen coach in favor of a minor league managing job.
A former manager of the year in the Pacific Coast League and the International League, the only two Triple-A leagues that still exist, Nottle became the Explorers' first skipper when the club became one of six charter members of the independent Northern League in 1993.
He spent eight seasons with the X's, then had one year in Duluth, Minn., a former league rival, before guiding the Brockton (Mass.) Rox, another current Can-Am League club, through their first four seasons from 2002-05.
He returned to Sioux City the last two seasons and had a verbal agreement to manage again this year when he announced last August he was stepping down despite no guarantee of another job elsewhere.
Ironically, Nottle's abbreviated season with Ottawa will be finished out by a former Sioux City resident, Tom Carcione, who was Nottle's pitching coach with the X's the last two seasons and joined him this summer as the Rapidz' hitting coach. The acting manager during Nottle's week-long return to Evansville, Carcione still plans to return in the fall to Northern Illinois University, where he logged his first season as an NCAA Division I assistant coach in the spring.
"I know Tommy's taking this harder than me since I brought him in and now he has to take over for me,'' Nottle told the Ottawa Sun. "I've been fired before, but these circumstances are new to him.''
Nottle, who spent 10 seasons as the field manager in Sioux City, was reportedly informed of his dismissal Tuesday night, just as he was preparing to rejoin the team following a leave of absence to be with his ailing wife in Evansville, Ind.
The Rapidz, last in the eight-team league's first-half standings with a 13-34 record, had rebounded in second-half play, posting a 7-8 mark with a five-game winning streak before a Wednesday afternoon setback at league-leading Atlantic City.
Nottle, though, missed all five games in the win streak along with Wednesday's loss because his wife, Patty, who has had a long battle with leukemia, was undergoing tests last Friday and again on Monday.
"I absolutely did the right thing,'' said Nottle, defending his visit to Evansville for the Ottawa Sun. "My daughter called me and was worried we might get bad news, and after 42 years of marriage, and I'm gone most of the time anyway, if she was going to get bad news, I didn't want her to have to hear it alone.''
In contrast to her husband's job situation, Mrs. Nottle received favorable reports on both her leukemia as well as concerns about her heart.
"In all my years of managing, I never wanted to succeed more than I did here in Ottawa,'' Nottle told the Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday. "I have been treated like a king here by the people in this city. I can't begin to tell you how well I have been treated.
"I made a statement that Ottawa would be the last place I ever managed. I guess I lied. I wanted it to be that way, but I will manage again. But some day this can be the jewel of independent baseball. This city and this facility and these fans can make it that way.''
Ottawa Stadium, with a capacity of over 10,000, became the new team's home after the Canadian capital lost the Philadelphia Phillies' Class AAA International League farm club to Allentown, Pa.
However, it was Can-Am League Commissioner Miles Wolff who got the new franchise started, committing the league to operating the club until local owners could be found. The league had footed most of the bills last year for a traveling team, the Grays, that played its entire schedule on the road.
So, Wolff was pleasantly surprised when Ottawa businessmen Rick Anderson and Rob Hall from the online DVD rental company "Zip.ca'' stepped forward in mid-April. Nottle, hired in early March, was already on the job.
In a statement released to Ottawa media on Wednesday, Hall said, "The decision to part company with Ed came only after long and careful deliberation. Ed has helped the Rapidz take root in Ottawa, but a manager is ultimately judged by his team's performance on the field and we felt it necessary to make a change at this time.''
Nottle, 68, was in his 49th season in professional baseball. He has toiled nearly all of that time in the minor leagues, voluntarily relinquishing a one-year stint as the Oakland Athletics' bullpen coach in favor of a minor league managing job.
A former manager of the year in the Pacific Coast League and the International League, the only two Triple-A leagues that still exist, Nottle became the Explorers' first skipper when the club became one of six charter members of the independent Northern League in 1993.
He spent eight seasons with the X's, then had one year in Duluth, Minn., a former league rival, before guiding the Brockton (Mass.) Rox, another current Can-Am League club, through their first four seasons from 2002-05.
He returned to Sioux City the last two seasons and had a verbal agreement to manage again this year when he announced last August he was stepping down despite no guarantee of another job elsewhere.
Ironically, Nottle's abbreviated season with Ottawa will be finished out by a former Sioux City resident, Tom Carcione, who was Nottle's pitching coach with the X's the last two seasons and joined him this summer as the Rapidz' hitting coach. The acting manager during Nottle's week-long return to Evansville, Carcione still plans to return in the fall to Northern Illinois University, where he logged his first season as an NCAA Division I assistant coach in the spring.
"I know Tommy's taking this harder than me since I brought him in and now he has to take over for me,'' Nottle told the Ottawa Sun. "I've been fired before, but these circumstances are new to him.''
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