About a week ago, the chief executive officer of Yahoo, Carol Bartz, was fired. In an email to more than 13,000 employees, she delightfully said exactly that, to wit: "I've just been fired.'' Not what we usually hear from people leaving a profession other than through their own choosing.

The normal response is what was provided by Bill Neukom, who will be removed as managing general partner of the San Francisco Giants - numerous, stately euphemisms, such as, "This is the right time to turn the reins over."

What, this is a horse race?

The Oakland Tribune headline Thursday morning summed it up correctly, and tersely, in baseball terms: "You're Out.'' Yes, he is, because other people on the team's board of directors wanted as much.

Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News broke the news Wednesday afternoon, and immediately the Giants and Neukom tossed us the old "Earth is flat'' nonsense, circling the golf carts - nobody uses wagons anymore - and pointing out Neukom had decided to retire effective Dec. 31. Of course he had.

Hey, Bill, you'll be retiring at the end of the year, whether you want to or not.

On Tuesday evening, there was Neukom ignoring the signs that in theory keep all non-uniformed personnel off the grass behind the cage during batting practice at AT&T Park. Wouldn't want to leave a shoe print on the Kentucky blue. Unless you are the big boss. Which he was at the moment, standing there chatting up Carlos Beltran and Pablo Sandoval. Hours later, goodbye, Bill.

Executives from Wall Street to Silicon Valley - Ms. Bartz was located in latter area - debated whether her candid approach was the proper way to deal with a dismissal.

As David Streitfeld wrote in the New York Times: "In the upper echelons of corporate America, executives are forever leaving to pursue urgent opportunities, develop new ventures or that old standby, spend more time with their long-neglected families. Hardly anyone ever admits to being sacked."

Wouldn't you know it? At a quickly arranged news conference Thursday, Neukom, attired in one of his numerous bow ties, mentioned he would be seeing his 12 grandchildren, along with working at Stanford law school.

Neukom, who was a stockholder in the Giants, left Microsoft in 2008 to run the team after Peter Magowan retired. On Neukom's watch, the Giants in 2010 won their first World Series since moving to San Francisco in 1958. But the boys in the back of the bus, the directors, were not happy with his financial maneuverings.

They reportedly didn't want Neukom to toss out millions to star athletes but hoard it for a "rainy day fund.'' Nobody plays ball in the rain. Besides, it rarely rains in Northern Cal during the season. And you get what you pay for in the bigs.

Imagine somebody telling George Steinbrenner he had been bounced as the chief of the Yankees. George, as he did so frequently with Billy Martin, would have bounced the stockholders.

Neukom was no Steinbrenner. He is genteel, civilized and soft-spoken, although, like George, he was in the game to win.

Baseball was not just some cerebral exercise for Neukom. He felt an obligation to the people in the stands and the people in the dugout to build a champion.

These unscheduled job changes inevitably are full of denials and double talk. Neukom said there was no communications conflict with the board. And being "forced out'' was not the "right characterization."

That makes it appear as if he was in line for the role of playing Hamlet rather than giving up the position of making decisions on ballplayers. Not the "right characterization"? Either you're fired or you're not.

And Neukom was fired, his duties and title of CEO turned over to Larry Baer, who had been serving as president.

"There is a time to come and a time to leave, and this is the time to leave,'' insisted Neukom, paraphrasing the Byrds' lyric from the 1960s, taken from Ecclesiastes. When all else fails, you always can go biblical.

Fans of any team rarely are concerned with who is in charge, except when the franchise is awful. Then they blame the owner or the president. So the guy in the bleachers may not care that Neukom has been ousted, unless the Giants head to the lower level.

"Frankly, I don't see a lot of (organizational) change,'' said Baer in a statement entirely predictable.

One organizational change is the dispatching of Neukom, who sent an email to season-ticket holders about his "intention to retire.'' He's selling his Giants stock, keeping his tickets and going to assume the title of chairman emeritus.

As the former head of Yahoo, Ms. Bartz, would define it, he's been fired.