Baseball Digest Daily just sent word that the Pirates fired Dave Littlefield. I'm looking for a story.

Update: Here's one from the Post-Gazette:

The Pirates this morning fired general manager Dave Littlefield near the end of his seventh losing season.

He will be replaced on an interim basis by Brian Graham, the team's director of player development.

Littlefield, 47, took the post July 31, 2001, and his teams went a combined 442-581 in his tenure, never approaching .500. That included 67-95 finishes in 2005 and 2006, and the current edition's 61-79 record.

His contract, which was extended on opening day last year, was to run through the 2008 season.

The firing was made by principal owner Bob Nutting, who already had been searching for a new CEO to replace outgoing Kevin McClatchy and now will add the general manager's post to that list.

Littlefield talked a better game than he played, much like J.P. Ricciardi. At least the Blue Jays put the semblance of a good team on the field. Littlefield couldn't even build a good farm system:

What's worse, however, is that the Pirates farm system has nothing to show for years of major league ineptitude. The farm system should be crawling with fine young talent, but the Pittsburgh AA and AAA affiliates are crawling with players in their mid 20s. That's not the age that produces stars. The Athletics and Twins showed how to build a team with a low payroll. The Devil Rays and Royals can point to talent in their systems. There's no excuse for the Pirates to be this bad. Things won't change until Pittsburgh hires a GM who knows how to build a team from scratch.

I could excuse the performance on the field if the last place finishes were being used to build for the future. That didn't happen, and whoever takes his place permanently is in for a long rebuilding period.