The Los Angeles Angels fired manager Joe Maddon on Wednesday after the team lost its 12th straight game, dropping to 27-29 on the season. Maddon was in his third season back with the Angels (where he started his managerial career before his success with the Rays and Cubs), but had never been able to coax the same level of success in L.A. that he had in his previous two stops, despite the presence of two of the games biggest stars.
On Sunday, prior to the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast on ESPN, Tim Kurkjian provided some more details and color behind Maddon’s firing, including an anecdote that might go down as an all-timer: Maddon had decided to cut his hair into a mohawk that day to try and motivate the Angels, but the team never saw it because Maddon got fired at his house before he ever got to see the team.
Here’s the video from Tim Kurkjian’s report about Maddon getting a mohawk https://t.co/3hDDDnYDYa pic.twitter.com/9XdNgeYojY
— CJ Fogler AKA Perc70 #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) June 12, 2022
In the grand scheme of things, Maddon will be fine, but there are few “down bad” moments in recent sports history that would top cutting your hair into a mohawk to try and rally your team, only to get fired before you even get that chance. Instead of revealing that haircut to lighten the mood in the locker room, he had to deliver the news to his family that he got fired while sporting a mohawk.