Pink slips and golden parachutes

Published 11:01 pm Monday, August 9, 2010

Kicked to the curb Monday not only was Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu but three of his bench coaches, including a guy who was responsible for the players’ “mental skills.”

And here’s the really sad news: The person responsible for mental skills in the M’s front office remains gainfully employed.

Golden parachute: Wakamatsu’s not the only guy who suddenly has plenty of spare time on his hands. The chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard was forced out in the wake of an imbroglio involving the star of such hotel pay-per-view fare as “Sheer Passion.”

Mark Hurd will get a $40 million severance deal, which should inspire a sequel: “Sheer Larceny.”

All tarted up: Kellogg Co. plans to open a store devoted to Pop Tarts in New York’s Times Square.

How times have changed. Before it was cleaned up and Disneyfied in the 1990s, Times Square was well-known for a very different sort of tart.