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Thursday’s question of the day: How many World Series titles do you have to win to be considered an extraordinary baseball manager?

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Reporters from the Tribune family tackle to question of the day, then you get a chance to chime in and tell them why they are wrong.

Bill Shaikin, Los Angeles Times

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None. The Hall of Fame includes three managers never to win the World Series: Al Lopez (Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox), Wilbert Robinson (Brooklyn Dodgers) and Frank Selee (Chicago Cubs, in the Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance years). Baseball insiders swear by Gene Mauch as one of the most innovative managers in history, although Mauch is more popularly branded by the September collapse of the 1964 Phillies and the October collapse of the 1986 Angels. For Joe Girardi, who replaced the sainted Joe Torre in New York, winning the World Series in his second year after missing the playoffs in his first year is extraordinary enough.

Bill Kline, Allentown Morning Call

Hall of Famer Earl Weaver was a great skipper for the Baltimore Orioles -- a statement as sure as Brooks Robinson’s hands.
But to argue that the forgettable Joe Altobelli was an extraordinary manager of Baltimore seems as absurd as saying the Orioles will win it all in 2010.
Yet both Weaver and Altobelli won one -- and only one -- World Series title while managing the Orioles. Which is why you cannot automatically label a manager as extraordinary when his team wins a World Series. To be extraordinary, a manager also must keep his team at or near the top for at least a half-dozen years.
In other words, Terry Francona is almost there. And as for Joe Girardi and Charlie Manuel, look us up in the middle of the next decade or when you get fired, whichever comes first.

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