By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Reds COO John Allen announces the firings Monday. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

Jim Bowden got on the elevator at Cinergy Field just after watching Wily Mo Pena put on an awesome display in batting practice.

Pena had hit ball after ball into what was to become Great American Ball Park.

Bowden turned to a couple of writers and said: "That's going to go down as my best trade."

In that one sentence, Bowden may have summed up all that led to his demise as the Reds general manager on Monday.

He was continually infatuated with outfielders who could hit, run and throw. He always thought what he didn't have was better than what he had.

That's why Bowden kept Pena, who should have been in Double-A, on the Reds roster most of the year. That was particularly puzzling this year because Bowden needed a competitive team to keep his job. Instead, he chose to essentially operate with a 24-man roster to ensure that he would not look bad if Pena turned out to be the next Sammy Sosa.

Bowden didn't return phone calls Monday.

But the guess here is he would have blamed pitching and payroll for his failure.

The payroll wasn't Bowden's fault. But the decisions he made on pitching were almost all wrong.

He traded for 45 pitchers since 1997. Only four of them - Danny Graves, Chris Reitsma, Ryan Dempster and Brian Reith, remain with the club.

Other than the bad pitching decisions, Bowden often made the organization look bad. He fired Tony Perez after 44 games in 1993.

There were his infamous comments about union chief Don Fehr flying planes into buildings, while discussing baseball's labor troubles - after Sept. 11.

There was the disastrous non-hiring of Ron Oester. Oester, a fan favorite, accused Bowden of lying: "Jim can say whatever he wants. I think he believes his own lies."

He showed up the entire Los Angeles Dodgers baseball staff at the winter meetings in 2002, saying he wouldn't discuss any deals until Tommy Lasorda was present.

But Bowden survived all that. It hurt him because some GMs refused to deal with him.

In the end, the team he put together for the opening of Great American Ball Park, after six years of buildup, wasn't good enough.

Reds manager Bob Boone went down with Bowden, largely because Bowden set up a team that had little margin for error. When the injuries hit, as they inevitably do, the Reds fell apart and fell out of the race.

Boone, of course, was not without fault. He was not a disciplinarian. He probably tolerated too much.

The other day Jose Guillen was late for stretching. Boone saw him and said, "Hurry up, they're waiting on you." He said it with a smile.

"Bob's a nice guy," one of his coaches said. "Guys took advantage of that."

Boone recently had more clashes with players than in his previous two years. Guillen and Adam Dunn were critical of Boone over playing time. Dempster questioned Boone's handling of pitchers.

Those may have eroded Boone's authority.