TO MANY in baseball, Pat Gillick's hire as the Phillies' general manager in late 2005 signaled impending doom for the brief tenure of manager Charlie Manuel.
It was just a matter of time before he would be replaced, until the savvy Gillick could get a lay of the land and bring in one of those big-name managers for whom everyone clamored.
And when Gillick's first move was to trade Manuel's protégé, Jim Thome, to the White Sox?
Well, you probably couldn't even have found a bookie to take a bet on ol' Chuck after that.
Three seasons later, Manuel and Gillick stood atop the same float amid a sun-saturated parade that both men now say was one of the highlights of their baseball-rich lives.