Chicago ? With apologies to Dave Dombrowski and Allard Baird, anybody can fire Phil Garner after an 0-6 start or Tony Muser when his team is 8-15. But as Baird showed with his sloppy handling regarding Muser, not everyone can do it right.

But we digress. Here’s the point: There have been four managerial changes since Opening Day, five since the start of spring training, and not one has had any intrigue.

Whatever happened to making tough decisions in October? Why is it that these days it almost always seems to be the general managers of lost causes, not underachieving contenders, who adjust their leadership on the fly?

You don’t have to be Branch Rickey to pull the plug on Davey Lopes, Buddy Bell, Garner or Muser not when their teams were a combined 17-49 at the time they were terminated.

It’s worth noting that the Tigers, Brewers, Rockies and Royals have gone 20-22 since they were taken over by two bench coaches (Luis Pujols and Jerry Royster), a hitting instructor (Clint Hurdle) and a bullpen coach (John Mizerock). But because this is baseball, not boxing, improvement is pretty much a given when measured against a .258 winning percentage.

Not that long ago there was a certain elan about midseason managerial switches. They often happened with little warning and always came with a sense that the GM was raising the stakes. He was telling the players that excuse season was over; it was time to win without the comfort zone of a familiar manager.

With George Steinbrenner always up to something, there were 67 midseason managerial changes between 1978 and ’89. Not all of these were a case of putting some Lee Elia or Johnny Goryl out of their misery either.

Fourteen of those changes more than one of every five were made by GMs when their teams had winning records. Six of those went on to win divisional titles: the ’78 Yankees under Bob Lemon, the ’81 Yankees under Lemon, the ’81 Expos under Jim Fanning, the ’83 Phillies under Paul Owens, the ’88 Red Sox under the Joe Morgan who is not in the Hall of Fame and the ’89 Blue Jays under Cito Gaston.

The ’78 Yankees went on to win the World Series. The ’81 Yankees and ’83 Phillies reached the Series but lost. Lemon and the “Pope” were among the best storylines those years.

When was the last time this happened? When was the last time that a winning team grew stronger because of a midseason change at the end of the dugout?

Gaston, who replaced Jimy Williams with Toronto 12-14 in ’89, is the last manager to win a division title with a team he took over after Opening Day. Forty-three men have been in that situation although few have had a real chance with the team they took over.

The 1996 Dodgers reached the playoffs as a wild card under Bill Russell after Tommy Lasorda got the hook with a 41-35 record. Among 23 midseason changes made in the nine seasons that baseball has used its expanded playoff format, only Russell and Joe Kerrigan (who took over for Williams with Boston 65-53 and five games behind New York last August) were given teams with winning records.

By doubling the number of playoff teams, owners may have unintentionally taken the in-season heat off the managers of contenders.