``I've got to believe that Tito had nothing to do with it," said Wallace, 60, by phone yesterday. ``He said he wanted me to stay."
Wallace, who became pitching coach in 2003 after then-pitching coach Tony Cloninger was diagnosed with bladder cancer, dealt with serious health issues of his own this year after developing complications in the aftermath of hip replacement surgery just days before the start of spring training. Al Nipper, who was to have been the bullpen coach, stepped in as interim pitching coach until Wallace returned just after the All-Star break to share duties with Nipper, leading to a situation that Francona yesterday described as ``disjointed."
``I'd have had no problem with it," Wallace said of his dismissal, ``if I'd been there this year."
Wallace said he asked Epstein if his health was the reason for dismissal, and was told that it wasn't.
``Theo said, `Tito wants you, the players want you,' " Wallace said. ``I said, `Theo, don't insult my intelligence and say you need to go in a different direction.' So instead, he said they needed a new environment."
Wallace, who has spent 25 years, mostly with the Dodgers and Mets, as a coach and executive in baseball, was the Dodgers' senior vice president of baseball operations when he was hired by the Sox in 2003. At that time, there had been discussions that Wallace, once Cloninger recovered, would move into the front office to oversee the organization's pitching operations. Instead, Wallace remained in uniform, and upon his dismissal there was no discussion, he said, of moving into the front office.
``I think the thing I find most disappointing is that in four years, nobody ever asked my opinion about bringing in a player," Wallace said. ``In 2003, I was brought into the middle of chaos and we almost won it. The next year we won the World Series, and the year after that, without [Curt] Schilling and [Keith] Foulke, we got in [the playoffs].
``I just wish someone could give me a reason."
Wallace has received expressions of support from Schilling, Mike Timlin, Tim Wakefield, and Jason Varitek.
``That's respect you can't buy," he said. ``You've got to earn that."
