There have been, I am certain, worse baseball managers than Tony Muser.

In 1899, somebody named Frederick Chamberlain Hoey managed the New York Giants for 87 games. The Giants had won 51 percent of their games in 1898 and would win 44 percent of their games in 1900, but under Fred Hoey they won 36 percent of their games.

In 1904, Malachi Kittridge guided the Washington Senators to a 1-16-1 record in 18 games (he must have been thrilled with that tie).

In 1908, Kid Elberfeld, in the midst of a pretty good career as one of the American League's premier defensive shortstops, managed to get himself hired as manager of the New York Highlanders in late June. The future Yankees went 27-71 the rest of the way, and Elberfeld went back to playing shortstop.

In 1919, Jack Coombs, by all accounts an intelligent and thoughtful man, managed the Philadelphia Phillies to an 18-44 record before getting the boot.

In 1929, Judge Emil Fuchs managed the Boston Braves -- coincidentally enough, Fuchs also owned the Boston Braves -- for the entire season. The Braves, who'd lost 103 games in 1928, lost "only" 98 games under Fuchs; still, it's fairly safe to say that he wasn't a good manager, given that he didn't really know all that much about baseball.

In 1938, Bobby Wallace took over as manager of the Cincinnati Reds in September, and brought the Rhinelanders home with a 5-20 record. A quarter of a century earlier, Wallace had managed the St. Louis Browns for a season-plus, during which the Brownies had won 57 games and lost 134.

In 1971, Johnny Lipon "guided" the Cleveland Indians to an 18-41 mark after replacing Alvin Dark at the end of July. The Indians were not a good club, but 18-41 is 18-41.

In 1976, Karl Kuehl opened the season as manager of the Montreal Expos, who had finished with a respectable 75-87 record the previous season. When Kuehl was fired in early September, thanks in part to a very public feud with one of his players, the Expos were 43-85; they went 12-22 the rest of the way, then returned to respectability (75-87 again) the next season.

In 1977, Ted Turner managed the Atlanta Braves -- coincidentally enough, Turner also owned the Atlanta Braves -- for one game. The Braves lost that game, after which Turner was instructed by the Commissioner of Major League Baseball (remember when we had one of those?) to cease and desist.

If you want to feel sorry for somebody, feel sorry for the baseball fans in Kansas City. They've not only had to put up with 431 losses since July 9, 1997, but now there's a very real danger that their team won't even exist a year or three from now.

In 1976 and 1977, Alex Grammas managed the Milwaukee Brewers. They lost 95 games both seasons. In 1978, with George Bamberger running the show, the Brewers won 93 games.

I don't have any doubt that some of these men, and perhaps all of them, were worse managers than Tony Muser. But when it comes to pure volume, Tony Muser takes a back seat to nobody.

Searching for some historical precedent, I happened across John McCloskey, who managed four complete seasons (and part of another) and finished with a .313 career winning percentage. But it's really no precedent at all. McCloskey started out with the Louisville Colonels in 1895. They finished last. With the club again in last place, 19 games into the 1896 season, McCloskey got fired. He didn't manage again for another decade, returning in 1906 to begin a three-season stint with the St. Louis Cardinals. They finished seventh in his first season, and last in his second and third seasons.

And so ended McCloskey's managerial career, after 615 games and 417 losses.

Tony Muser's tenure as manager of the Kansas City Royals lasted 748 games, all of them with the same team. He has, in fact, managed more games than any manager in Royals history. That's an amazing thing, when you think about it. There's an old military saying that winning the battle depends on being "the firstest with the mostest." When it comes to Royals managers, Muser is "the worstest with the mostest."

Rany Jazayerli, a Royals fan who writes about baseball, recently noted, "Tony Muser has now officially been granted more chances than any other first-time manager in major-league history. Only one manager in history (Burt Shotton) managed five straight years for the same club with a worse winning percentage than Muser's (.426) and still got invited back for a sixth go 'round. And Shotton had earned his reprieve by finishing over .500 in Year 5."

Then there's Muser's record in one-run games. Bill James, another Royals fan who writes about baseball, recently figured that Muser's Royals lost 15 more one-run games than should have been expected from a team with its runs scored and runs allowed. That might not seem like a lot -- 15 games over slightly less than five seasons -- but over that span the Royals were one of the worst one-run teams in history. Those are just numbers, of course. But they're convincing numbers. Evaluating managers is an inexact science, but when all the markers are so negative ... well, it's safe to say that if Muser had done what he's done for any of the other 29 franchises, he would not have lasted as long as he did.

I have been a Royals fan since I was nine years old, and I'm too old and loyal to change now. But watching them play for the last couple of seasons has been painful. And it's more than just the losses. Losses aren't so bad if you can see them leading to wins. But one has never gotten that feeling, watching Muser's Royals. What's more, a lot of those losses have been ugly, the kind of losses that make you feel foolish for caring.

I have followed three teams closely over the last two decades: the Royals through 1993, the Mariners from 1996 through 1999, the Red Sox in 2000, and both the Royals and Mariners last year and this year. In all that time, I've never seen a team make anywhere near as many mistakes as Muser's Royals have made in these last two seasons. Quite often, the Royals haven't hustled. When they have hustled, more often then not they hustled into outs. Defensively, they messed up rundown plays, they let pop-ups drop untouched, they forgot how many outs there were, they forgot who was supposed to cover which base ... Think of all the things a team can do that will make even the fairest of fans want to boo, and the Royals have been doing them regularly.

What does Tony Muser have to do with all of this? After all, he's a hard worker who knows how the game has to be played, and he's not averse to chewing out a recalcitrant player. But on a subconscious level, at least some of the players must be thinking, "Why should I give a damn? It's obvious that performance doesn't matter to the guys who sign the paychecks. If it did, the manager wouldn't still be working here." When you don't have any accountability at the top, why should anyone expect accountability at the bottom?

Defenders of losing managers often say that "the manager can't hit or pitch," which of course is true on a simplistic level. The problem with that argument is that if managers really didn't matter, then teams wouldn't bother with them. If managers didn't matter, there wouldn't be 16 of them in the Hall of Fame. If there's really somebody out there who doesn't think that managers matter, I urge you to examine each team that Billy Martin managed, immediately before and immediately after he took over. Baseball managers are like people in virtually every profession; there are a few great ones, there are a few lousy ones, and everybody else is in the middle somewhere. You can win with the guys in the middle -- teams do it every year -- but winning with a lousy manager is tough.

There will be, I suspect, some people who feel sorry for Tony Muser. Mostly, it'll be baseball writers and broadcasters. They'll rail against the cruelty of a business in which "a great baseball man" like Tony Muser is given only five years to prove that he has even the slightest business managing a major-league baseball team. And yes, Muser was treated shabbily by his bosses, who should have shown some mercy and fired their incompetent employee years ago; in the long run, they'd all have been the better for it. But if you want to feel sorry for somebody, don't feel sorry for Tony Muser, who got to do what he always wanted to do.

If you want to feel sorry for somebody, feel sorry for his players, who've had to put up with a fool for a boss. Feel sorry for Chad Durbin, a young pitcher with a fantastic right arm whose career is in danger because Muser doesn't know how to handle a talented young pitcher any more than he knows how to handle a Stradivarius. Feel sorry for Mike Sweeney, a brilliant young hitter and a fine man whose talents have been completely wasted for a terrible team that plays in front of tiny home crowds.

If you want to feel sorry for somebody, feel sorry for the baseball fans in Kansas City. They've not only had to put up with 431 losses since July 9, 1997, but now there's a very real danger that their team won't even exist a year or three from now. And if those fans are looking for scapegoats, they don't have to look any further than Muser, his boss (general manager Allard Baird), and his boss's boss (owner David Glass). It may be classed as involuntary manslaughter, but those three men have gone a long way toward killing baseball in Kansas City.

Allard Baird believed in Tony Muser long past the point he should have, and that inexplicable belief has cost Baird his credibility. Now there is one, and only one, easy way for Baird to begin the process of redeeming himself: He should hire Larry Dierker or Buck Showalter, both of whom have actually demonstrated an ability to win baseball games. Given Baird's lack of success evaluating managerial timber, however, it's highly unlikely that he'll even think of Dierker and Showalter, let alone hire one of them. It's likely that Baird will instead hire Bucky Dent, currently managing the Royals' Triple-A farm club in Omaha.

But whomever Baird hires, the new man will have the immediate advantage of not being Tony Muser. By that measure alone, today the Kansas City Royals are better than they were yesterday.