Only two weeks unemployed and Dave Dombrowski got a better job with a better chance at getting to the World Series in 2016.

And the team he’s taking over is currently in last place in its division.

Not a bad recovery for a “colossal failure,” eh?

This is when the bill is due for demanding accountability. It always sounds nice initially insisting that somebody’s head roll for missed expectations. Anger must be answered. Consequences must come. And there’s no denying that the Detroit Tigers should have had one World Series title to show for Dombrowski’s Herculean efforts in rising a proud franchise from the ashes of ineptitude and indifference in his 14 years.

But the Ilitches, who own the team, look even sillier in their callous handling of Dombrowski’s departure now that Boston aggressively outbid at least two other teams for Dombrowski’s services. As a result, the Red Sox bade farewell to a general manager who won them a world championship just two years ago.

Ben Cherington gave Boston the downtown championship parade in 2013 that Detroit hasn’t had since 1984. Yet he got kicked to the curb with six weeks remaining in the season because the Red Sox couldn’t believe that the Ilitches would cut loose one of the premier chief executives in baseball with time remaining on the clock.

An already terrible August for the Tigers got worse.

The Ilitches let their emotions trump their normally astute business sense. Two weeks later, there remains no public explanation for what ultimately crumbled the long relationship between Dombrowski and the Ilitches. My own suspicions from speaking with various parties in and around the Tigers is that the Ilitches thought that Dombrowski had made back-channel overtures to potential suitors for when his contract ended after the season.

I bet Mike Ilitch got mad and wanted him gone. Now.

He’s the boss. It’s his team. He can do whatever he thinks is best. And if he doesn’t want to tell the fans what happened – again, it’s his team.

But the Tigers lost significant organizational credibility within the game with how it handled Dombrowski’s ouster. It’s believed that Ilitch inexcusably fired Dombrowski over the phone. Ilitch’s Aug. 4 statement credited Dombrowski for achieving “some success” in his 14 seasons in Detroit, a deliberate slight not lost on some baseball people who thought Ilitch didn’t display the proper gratitude for Dombrowski’s overall success in returning the Tigers to major league relevance as well as dramatically increasing the overall value of his franchise.

It’s ironic that it’s the Red Sox who landed Dombrowski. The Game 2 late-inning collapse against Boston in the 2013 American League Championship Series began the gradual downward trajectory that eventually resulted in Dombrowski’s departure and Manager Brad Ausmus’ likely dismissal following the season.

It has to be a twist of the knife that as angry as many Tigers fans remain about Dombrowski’s terrible construction of the bullpen, the Red Sox are ecstatic that they’ve got one of the best negotiators in the business. Armed with a much better farm system, Dombrowski can better work his trade magic with better minor league resources at his disposal.

At least Red Sox ownership showed up at Dombrowski’s introductory news conference Wednesday. John Henry and Tom Werner answered repeated questions as to why Cherington suddenly became expendable despite playing a critical role in the Red Sox winning three World Series titles in a 10-year span. Henry didn’t hesitate clarifying the situation.

“We didn’t know that Dave Dombrowski would become a free agent as quickly as he did,” Henry said during the news conference.

One team’s failure becomes another team’s fortune.

The Red Sox resemble an organization that knows what it wants and will aggressively get it done, while over the last two weeks the Tigers resemble a team unsure of what direction it will take. And until somebody from the Ilitch family steps forward and answers some questions and provides a little more clarity, it shouldn’t make Tiger fans feel comfortable about this team’s immediate future.

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