I once read somewhere that poodles require you to teach them a trick four times, on average, before they’ll remember the instruction. A pug, being less smart by a solid margin, requires you to repeat that same lesson 96 times before they’ll learn it. A mildly intelligent human will generally need to hear a lesson twice to really lock it in there.

The sporting press? They seem to be about the level of the aforementioned poodle.

Perhaps that’s why the slowest-thinking Toronto Blue Jays beat reporters are positively agog at the remote possibility that the Jays might go after Barry Bonds to replace Frank Thomas, who just got run out of Leaf-Town on a rebar rail.

For many homer reporters, it seems, the loss of a franchise player and millions of dollars isn’t cause for investigation, recrimination, and rehabilitation of the front office - rather, it’s just an opportunity to make the same mistakes all over again. Dump one overpaid, over the hill, DH with attitude, bring aboard another - only this time with perjury, tax fraud, and drug allegations against him! Huzzah!

Was Thomas in the wrong to have yapped to the press about his boss? Sure. But is that really the problem that needed rectifying, or was Thomas yet another in a long line of Blue Jay fall guys who were cut adrift to keep an angry manager from having to change his ways?

This might be a good time to roll down a little thing I like to call the Is Your Manager An Asshole checklist.

1. Has your manager ever physically attacked a player on your team?
2. Have you had to let go of a .301-hitting player who questioned your manager’s decisions, after the manager challenged him to a fight and told him he’d never play for the team again?
3. Have you ever had to pay out, say, $8m to a Hall-Of-Famer who you chose to cut because he thought your manager was leaving him out of the side for reasons other than his performance?
4. Has your manager ever sent down a pitcher who was visibly annoyed at getting pulled early, then traded that same player, only for him to win 24 games over two seasons elsewhere?
5. Is your manager boasting a career managerial record that barely sits above .500?

If you answered yes to all these questions, then you’re a Blue Jay fan.

Jays fans have it in their heads that Thomas had to go, but Frank Thomas played for Oakland in 2006 for next to no money, and was a star of the clubhouse. He was friendly, he was jovial, he didn’t have a negative thing to say about anyone all season long. Yes, he got off to a slow start. He always does. But then he smacked the ball hard, drove the team into the playoffs, and a subsequent ALCS spot.

Frank Thomas played for Toronto last season, and his year followed a similar course, almost right the way down the line - slow start, big middle, solid finish. But now, with the big guy on course to pick up a $10m option year if he stayed in the lineup, suddenly a slow start was cause to sit him and replace him with Matt Stairs and Rod Barajas? Seriously?

At some point, you have to look beyond short term problems in the Blue Jays dugout and look to the bigger picture, if you really want to fix the organization and compete with the Red Sox and Yankees. And anyone with the intellect of a poodle (or above) should be able to see by now that the biggest problem the Blue Jays have is the guy picking the team.

Throw Barry Lamar Bonds into that mix, and I guarantee you that he’ll come to blows with Gibbons inside two weeks. Guaranteed. 

And the Jays know it: 

"Barry is now 43 years old, he’s got other problems in front of him, and I don’t want his presence to be a distraction to the rest of the team." - Jays President Paul Godfrey.

The Jays also know their manager is a ticking timebomb, and for whatever reason, they’re prepared to waste $8m and a Hall-of-Famer, rather than risk another Gibbons blow-up.

Here’s the take of the Chicago Tribune’s Mike Downey:

Not only did your Blue Jays gladly let a Hall of Famer go, their right-handed designated hitter will now be one Rod Barajas, a 32-year-old mediocrity with a lifetime batting average of .239 and a puny 63 home runs. Yes, they would rather this guy be their DH than one of the greatest right-handed batsmen in the game.

It ain’t about offense, Mike.

It’s about defense; the defense of a bad manager.