Todd Bowles said the magic words that get coaches fired

Todd BowlesJACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Back in the Yankees’ bad, old days, when George Steinbrenner used to change managers more regularly than he would his blue blazers, there was one skipper who was nice enough to do the heavy lifting for him.

That was Bucky Dent, erstwhile franchise hero, who by 1990 was an embattled manager but still a popular pinstriped figure. The Yankees were lousy then, and Steinbrenner really wanted them to turn things around on Dent’s watch. But Bucky made it hard.

“What can I say?” he said one day in early June, after his team had lost another one-run game. “I’ve never seen anything like our luck in close games.”

A few nights later — in Boston, of all places — as the…