It was Chris Chambliss' fault!

The just fired hitting coach was the reason that the Reds became midgets at the plate. It was him and him alone that caused Cincy's bats to go into the deep freeze.

If it wasn't for Chambliss and his obvious incompetence, why, the Reds would have never suffered through the doldrums that they experienced.

Remove Chambliss from the equation and not only do the Reds make the postseason but they go on such a hitting tear you'd think they were the '27 Yankees.

Yes, without Chambliss around to gum up the works, everything would have been rosy in the Queen City. The Reds would have raked like never before. 

Please!

Nothing could be further from the truth. Maybe Chambliss did have some shortcomings but, on balance, he proved to be a very solid coach. Generally, he produced good results.

That's why the manner in which his firing was handled appears so unseemly.

On its' face, Chambliss' termination seems to point the finger of blame solely at him for the Reds' utter collapse at the plate in the late going of '06.

It smacks of the Reds trying to find a fall guy for their notable implosion down the stretch. After all, someone's got to take the hit for that embarrassing fadeout.

So why not Chambliss. He's as good a scapegoat as anyone.

And, in many ways, that's what this dismissal is all about. Finding a convenient target to take the heat.

Truth be told, G.M. Wayne Krivsky and Jerry Narron are every bit, if not more responsible, for the Reds' hitting woes.

They should be the ones looking themselves in the mirror instead of implying that Chambliss was at the heart of Cincy's travails at the plate.

Does this reporter need to remind you that it was Krivsky who gutted the Reds' lineup by trading Austin Kearns and Felipe Lopez and then did nothing about replacing them.

Or that it was Narron who ran out lineups full of unknowns and neophytes when it was totally unnecessary to do so because he had more accomplish players at his disposal.

This type of turning-a-blind-eye to your own faults while fingering someone else is disturbing and bush.

If either Krivsky or Narron, at the time of Chambliss' release, had accepted even part of the blame for what went wrong, you'd have been more understanding of their actions.

But, no. You heard nary a peep. Neither one of them came forward to admit their own culpability. Instead, they left Chambliss hanging on the line to take the brunt of the criticism and fallout.

Much to his credit, Chambliss walked away with his dignity and class intact. He didn't lash out and he made no excuses.

Chambliss merely said the firings are part of baseball and that he fully understands that reality. He took the high road.

Chambliss is a hard worker and a quality person. Given his background and makeup, he shouldn't have trouble finding another gig.

And he can point to the fact that, for the most part, his three-year stint in Cincinnati was a positive. 

Under his guidance, the Reds were a potent hitting team in '04, led the National League in runs scored in '05 and as late as August of this year, were pacing the NL in both slugging and on-base percentage.

Now, that's not to say that Chambliss couldn't have gotten more out of his charges. There's no denying that Cincy's Achilles' heel was way too many strikeouts and Chambliss never did get a firm grip on that problem during his tenure with the Reds.

Moreover, his inability to get Adam Dunn to cut down on his horrendous number of K's and hit for a more respectable average was disappointing. It probably was part of Chambliss' undoing.

But then you're left to ask, how much of that was Dunn's fault and how much can be laid at Chambliss' doorstep?

An honest evaluation of Chambliss' stay in Cincy would conclude that, though he was deficient in some areas, he nonetheless was a plus. He did more good than harm. His overall performance would probably grade out anywhere from a B to a B-minus.

That being said and regardless of what you may think of Chambliss' merits as a coach, this is Krivsky's team and he has the right to fire anyone he wants.

Indications are that Krivsky was doing a slow burn over the Reds' excessive number of whiffs, their lack of situational hitting, their low team batting average and the fact they produced very few sacrifice flies.

Krivsky is a great believer in contact and in his estimation, Chambliss wasn't adequately addressing this concern.

That's fine. No one is saying that Krivsky can't make moves that he's convinced will help the club.

But, by the same token, when you do make changes, admit your own responsibility as to why things deteriorated.

You can make a compelling case that Krivsky negatively impacted the Reds' lineup just as much he might believe that Chambliss did.

Letting loose of  Kearns and Lopez was foolhardy and Krivsky made so many deals and trades that he arguably undermined team chemistry.

Krivsky overreached and by doing so he made the Reds' less threatening at the plate. It would have been admirable if he had made that admission when he sent Chambliss packing.

The same goes for Narron, only double. In the year and a half that he's been the Cincy skipper, I've never once heard or seen him take the blame for anything.

It seems as if accountability ain't his thing.

Narron's a master when it comes to excuses, justifications, alibis, rationalizations and explanations. But when it comes to taking a hit, he's harder to find than a Honus Wagner vintage baseball card.

And predictably, when Chambliss' got his pink slip, Narron dodged any blame.

What the Reds' manager mentioned was that the Cincy batsmen fail to make any adjustments when they struggled, inferring that Chambliss alone should have corrected this flaw.

As if the hitters themselves or Narron couldn't have been part of the solution.

Simple logic says that if Narron felt that his batters needed correction and weren't responding to Chambliss' teaching, then he should have aggressively involved himself.

He should have been proactive and went about working in conjunction with Chambliss to see that a different approach was adopted.

Instead, he made like Nero and passively watched his team burn itself out.

Damn it, if something's wrong on your watch, then you do what it takes to fix it if your subordinates aren't capable of doing so.

If, in Narron's opinion, Chambliss wasn't getting the job done, then he should have done everything in his power to rectify the situation and try to make it right.

Obviously, he didn't do that. He simply observed from afar and then when it was to his advantage, he second-guessed.

Narron doesn't seem to understand that the buck stops with him. It seems as if he'd rather lay blame then lead. That doesn't speak well of anyone, let alone a big-league manager.

So now Chambliss is gone, paying the ultimate price for the failures of not only himself but of the players, the front office and the manager.

He took his medicine, accepted it and then walked away in a graceful fashion.

The same can't be said for how the Reds handled his firing.

They pointed the finger at Chambliss while neglecting to point it at themselves.

It wasn't their finest hour. They let a good man be blamed while they weren't willing do the same.