{"id":3572,"date":"2022-04-01T20:32:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-01T20:32:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linksus.net\/i-have-a-broken-heart-mike-shildt-bares-his-soul-about-being-fired-by-the-cardinals-usa-today\/"},"modified":"2022-04-01T20:32:18","modified_gmt":"2022-04-01T20:32:18","slug":"i-have-a-broken-heart-mike-shildt-bares-his-soul-about-being-fired-by-the-cardinals-usa-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/2022\/04\/01\/i-have-a-broken-heart-mike-shildt-bares-his-soul-about-being-fired-by-the-cardinals-usa-today\/","title":{"rendered":"'I have a broken heart:' Mike Shildt bares his soul about being fired by the Cardinals – USA TODAY"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX \u2013 It\u2019s getting dark. The game ended hours ago. The only people remaining in the stadium are the grounds crew putting a tarp on the field.
And one man who remains in full uniform.
Mike Shildt, seated on the San Diego Padres bench, hasn\u2019t moved for 90 minutes. He has nowhere to go. Plenty of time on his hands, trying to process how he ever got here.
One minute, he\u2019s leading the St Louis Cardinals to one of the most stunning September runs in baseball history, making the playoffs for the third consecutive year.
The next, he\u2019s abruptly fired<\/a>, interviews for the Padres\u2019 managerial vacancy, and lands in the organization as a player development consultant and interim third base coach.
He\u2019s still trying to heal from the emotional scars, wanting to focus on the present and the future, but realizes for now he\u2019s still defined by the past.
\u201cI have a broken heart,\u2019\u2019 Shildt tells USA TODAY Sports. \u201cIt still hurts.\u00a0It hurts bad. When it\u00a0first happened, I broke down. I\u00a0was inconsolable.\u00a0I got better\u00a0as time went on. Then I got down here, put on the Padres uniform, and it hit me.
\u201cNow, it just hit me again.\u2019\u2019
Just hours earlier, Albert Pujols and the Cardinals were rejoicing during an impromptu press conference announcing that Pujols was returning to the organization<\/a> for one last dance, ending his Hall of Fame career with the Cardinals where it all started.
Shildt should have been on the stage too,\u00a0smiling in front of the cameras.
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Instead, he\u2019s alone with a reporter in the visitors\u2019 dugout at Camelback Ranch, where his job as the Padres\u2019 third-base coach is expected to end in a few weeks when Matt Williams returns from his hip-replacement surgery.
\u201cI love that organization, gave it everything I had for 18 years,\u2019\u2019 Shildt said. \u201cWe make the playoffs after they hadn\u2019t been there for three years. We get back to the standards of the Cardinals. We\u2019re set up to really go. The clean style of play, the culture,\u00a0everything is in place.
\u201cAnd you get removed from it.\u2019\u2019
Shildt pauses, momentarily looks away, and softly says, \u201cIt feels like it was stolen away from me.\u2019\u2019
The Cardinals\u2019 season ended on Chris Taylor\u2019s walk-off homer in the Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 NL wild-card victory, when John Mozeliak, Cardinals president of baseball operations, summoned him to a zoom call with himself and owner Bill DeWitt at 11 a.m. on Oct. 14.
\u201cI was getting on the phone with the thought it was going to be about a contract extension,\u2019\u2019 Shildt said. \u201cI had one more year on my contract. So I was looking at some of the numbers of the last three years, feeling good about them, and then Mo started talking.\u2019\u2019
Mozeliak opened up the call by saying, “Mike, this conversation isn\u2019t going to go the way you think it\u2019s going to go.\u2019\u2019
The conversation lasted four, maybe five minutes, top. To this day, Shildt can\u2019t remember exactly what was said. Everything became a blur. His body went limp. His mind went numb.
All he knew is that after spending 18 years in the only organization he has ever known \u2013revering the Cardinals\u2019 uniform so much that he never put it on the floor to be washed with other clothes, leaving it nearly folded with the Cardinal logo always facing up \u2013 he was fired.
\u201cI never thought it was a possibility,\u2019\u2019 Shildt says. \u201cIt hit me like a ton of bricks.\u2019\u2019
He walked upstairs to tell his wife, Michelle. She didn\u2019t believe him. She thought it was a joke. It actually took several minutes for Shildt to convince her that he was fired.
The news quickly swept through St. Louis like a Midwest twister, with no hints Shildt\u2019s job was even remotely in jeopardy.
\u201cI was shocked, completely shocked, that\u2019s the way I can say it,\u2019\u2019 said Milwaukee Brewers manager Craig Counsell, who finished second in the NL manager of the year voting, one spot ahead of Shildt. I don\u2019t even know what happened. Maybe he doesn\u2019t either.
\u201cI mean what they did in September, there has to be some credit given along the way.\u2019\u2019
Shildt\u2019s first three calls and messages were from Cardinals\u2019 veterans Yadier Molina, Paul Goldschmidt, and Adam Wainwright. Fellow managers immediately reached out, and five months later, still are paying homage. Los Angeles Angels Joe Maddon called him over last week to hug him. Cleveland Guardians manager Terry Francona shook his hand and told him that he\u2019d be back. Three-time World Series champion Bruce Bochy had dinner with him in Nashville, Tennessee. Former Boston Red Sox manager Grady Little reminded him that the landscape is filled with managerial greats who have been fired.
And, just a few days ago, there was an impromptu meeting behind home plate with Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa.
La Russa, who spent 16 years as the Cardinals manager with two World Series titles before returning to manage the Chicago White Sox, said he heard a comment from someone in the Cardinals\u2019 organization that Shildt was fired because of a \u201ctoxic environment.\u2019\u2019
\u201cThat one frosted my ass,\u2019\u2019 La Russa said. \u201cMy comment was that if it was toxic, it must be in the front office. \u2026 I\u2019m for the Cardinals. Everybody makes their own decision. But when you start talking about that, it might damage his chance to manage again for those that don\u2019t know any better. He did a hell of a job.
\u201cPhilosophical differences? Ok. But toxic?
\u201cHe\u2019s a special guy. That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important for his reputation to be intact and not smeared.\u2019\u2019
Mozeliak, when contacted, declined to publicly revisit the reasons for Shildt\u2019s firing. He simply reiterated that there were philosophical differences, saying Shildt\u2019s record and success as manager was inconsequential in the decision.
Shildt, 53, without going into public details, acknowledges he didn\u2019t share the same views with Mozeliak on some components of the organization, but not nearly enough to provoke a firing.
\u201cI thought I was going to die in my Cardinals uniform,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why it still hurts so much.\u2019\u2019
Shildt, who spent endless hours this winter reflecting on what soured the relationship, refuses to publicly point fingers at anyone but himself. Maybe he should have just solely focused on managing without offering his input on any other aspect of the organization. Perhaps he should have just kept his opinions to himself.
Then again, maybe he just loved the organization so much that he refused to idly watch anything stand in the way of their success and mission of being a perennial World Series contender.
\u201cI was so loyal to that organization, and cared so much,\u2019\u2019 Shildt said, \u201cI felt an immense weight of being a caretaker of that organization. Ultimately, I put too much pressure on myself. That was my issue, not anybody else\u2019s. I didn\u2019t want to let Mo down. I didn\u2019t want to let my team down. I didn\u2019t want to let our fanbase now. I didn\u2019t want to let the tradition of players that came before us down. I was very passionate of that, and dedicated to it, and at some level, I probably cared too much.
\u201cThere were just some things that I felt could be better, and I thought I was in a safe place to share them. Clearly, I wasn\u2019t.\u2019\u2019
Shildt, who will return to his duties as a player development consultant when Williams comes back, will also be a volunteer assisting MLB\u2019s\u00a0collegiate summer Appalachian League. It\u2019s merely the latest addendum in his expansive resume. This is a man who coached high school baseball for three years, American Legion baseball for two years, college for five years, rookie ball for eight years, Class AA for three years and two years at AAA, and was a quality-control coach in the big leagues, a third-base coach, a hitting coach, a bench coach, an infield coach and a big-league manager.
He also spent the first three years in the Cardinals organization as an associate scout, assisted in drafting Oliver Marmol, and promoted Marmol to become the youngest bench coach in baseball.
Now, at the age of 35, Marmol is baseball\u2019s youngest manager, replacing Shildt.
\u201cHe\u2019s a sharp guy, he\u2019s ready for it,\u2019\u2019 Shildt says. \u201cI\u2019ll be pulling him and for all of those guys. I\u2019ll never stop pulling for the Cardinals. They\u2019re the ones who gave me this opportunity in the first place. They\u2019re the ones who took a chance on me, and I\u2019ll always be grateful for that.\u2019\u2019
Shildt, who interviewed for the Padres\u2019 managerial vacancy before they hired Bob Melvin, is hopeful one day of getting another opportunity. There are big-league managerial openings every year, and surely, Shildt will be a prime candidate for every one of them. His reputation in the game is pristine. He is a proven winning manager, producing a .559 winning percentage, and honored in 2019 as the NL Manager of the Year award.
The biggest adjustment may be simply getting used to wearing a different uniform.
\u201cI\u2019m blessed to have this opportunity and be in the position I am,\u2019\u2019 Shildt said. \u201cThese people have been welcoming and great. When I put on this Padre uniform for the first time, I just sat there, processing that I wasn\u2019t putting on a Cardinals uniform any more.
\u201cI just never thought I would not be a Cardinal. It left me shattered. But time heals, to some degree.
\u201cIt\u2019s just that I love those guys with all of my heart, and it hurts knowing I can\u2019t be with them.\u2019\u2019
Follow Nightengale on Twitter:\u00a0@Bnightengale<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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PHOENIX \u2013 It\u2019s getting dark. The game ended hours ago. The only people remaining in the stadium are the grounds crew putting a tarp on the field.And one man who remains in full uniform.Mike Shildt, seated on the San Diego Padres bench, hasn\u2019t moved for 90 minutes. He has nowhere to go. Plenty of time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linksus2.linksus.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}