The Royals may not, either. Bell got a contract only through the 2007 season, giving him little more than 400 games to work miracles.

Blame baseball’s goofy caste system, which relegates small market teams like the Royals to being perennial also-rans. When they do have an occasional decent season (83-79 in 2003) they’re forced to trade stars like Carlos Beltran because they can’t afford to keep them.

The teams that share their penurious ways aren’t much better.

The Yankees may not win the World Series every year just because they have the highest payroll, but it’s almost automatic that the teams that pay the least won’t win much. The bottom five teams in payroll this season all have losing records, with the combined record of the two lowest paying teams, Kansas City and Tampa Bay, a miserable 32-70 going into Tuesday’s games.

Bud Selig insists that the disparity between teams is shrinking and the economic playing field is more level than ever. But until baseball starts sharing revenue and puts a salary cap in place, small market teams will be eliminated from contention before summer even begins heating up.

That deals some managers a losing hand no matter how hard they try. Look at Bell’s predecessor, Tony Pena, who was hailed as a bright young manager when he led the Royals to a winning record in his second season. Pena didn’t last long, succumbing to the inevitable once the losses started mounting.

Likewise, managers such as Dave Miley in Cincinnati, Lloyd McClendon in Pittsburgh and Eric Wedge in Cleveland are almost inevitably doomed to failure because they’ll never have the players to win consistently.

There are only 30 jobs available for managers in the major leagues, and the good ones don’t open up very often. For every manager handed a team with promise — Ron Gardenhire in Minnesota or Jim Tracy in Los Angeles — there are 10 others hired only because the owner needed somebody to blame.

Bell won’t win in Kansas City, but not because he is 345-462 as a big league manager. He won’t win because the system is stacked against teams like the Royals, who are spending about as much this year on their entire team as the Yankees are on Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter.

It’s tough for guys like Bell to turn down a chance to manage again. Not nearly as tough, though, as trying to turn teams like this around.

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