BALTIMORE – -Four men have tried. No one has succeeded. Is anyone out there capable of having a winning season as manager of the Baltimore Orioles?

Sam Perlozzo was fired by the Orioles on Monday, the result of his inability to bring last-place Baltimore out of a lengthy funk culminated by an eight-game losing streak.

“We felt Sam was prepared, we felt the club was prepared to do battle every night,” executive vice president Mike Flanagan said in a news conference. “For whatever reason, it just wasn’t working.”

Bullpen coach Dave Trembley will be the interim manager when the Orioles begin a six-game trip in San Diego on Tuesday. One of the leading candidates to fill the position on a full-time basis is Joe Girardi, voted NL Manager of the Year in 2006 with the Florida Marlins after he was fired in a dispute with ownership.

On another front, the Orioles are negotiating with former Chicago Cubs president Andy MacPhail about becoming chief operating officer, a job left vacant since Joe Foss resigned earlier this year.

Since Davey Johnson guided the Orioles to a first-place finish in 1997, no one has been able to win in Baltimore. Ray Miller, Mike Hargrove, Lee Mazzilli and Perlozzo all failed, and unless the Orioles pull off a surprising turnaround, the team’s franchise-record run of losing seasons will reach 10 in 2007.

“I don’t know what the future holds for me with regard to my career,” Perlozzo said, “but I certainly hope to stay in the game that I have been a part of for so long.”