Exclusive footage of the reaction of the Official Mike Quade Fan Club hearing the news that he would be named interim manager of the Cubs.

The tension builds as Jim Hendry announces the ten candidates for the interim job, and the guy who looks like Geovany Soto gets a little too excited when Pat Listach is announced.  But Hendry saves the big reveal for last, and it’s nice to see that Stan Thomas had the sense to save his laptop.

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Fact is, you know Lou doesn’t believe that.  Lou knows you get what you deserve.  He had a lousy baseball team to manage this year, and they ended up lousy.  That’s how it works.  Lou also knows his legacy as a manager won’t be defined by what happened on one random August day when he had to write “Darwin Barney” on top of his lineup card.  Lou won more than 1,800 baseball games in his managerial career.  He won a World Series.  He managed a team that won 116 games in a season.  These Cubs could play non-stop until next December and not get to that number.

Lou wasn’t crying at home plate with Bobby Cox, and then after the game because his bullpen sucked.  He was crying because something he’s done for almost a half century is over.  He’ll still draw a paycheck in baseball after this.  He’ll be a Yankee consultant, and get paid to watch games and give his opinion on players.  Over the next ten years they’ll probably mail him two or three more World Series rings to add to his collection (he has three altogether.)

But Lou was sad yesterday for a lot of reasons.  He clearly loved being a manager, and he was good at it.  Really good at it, even in Chicago, where the lousy excuse for what constitutes the fanbase doesn’t seem to think so.  He was sad because that part of his life was over, and on top of it, he’s likely going home to watch his mother die.  And, it was probably the last chance he’ll have to hang out with George Castle.  You’d cry too, if your life was about to be 100 percent Castle-free.  I mean the guy is just a force of personality and good times.  Wait, what was that last part?  I’ve clearly had some sort of stroke.  Someone call 9-1-1.

In four years with the Cubs, Lou had three winning seasons.  Can you name the last Cubs manager to have three winning seasons in four years?

Leo Durocher, who actually had five winning seasons in a row from 1967-1971, and he was over .500 in 1972 when he got whacked.

Before Leo?

Charlie Grimm, in the 1930s.  So, every forty years the Cubs pull this off.  I can’t wait for the late 2040s!

I was, and am, and will always be, an unabashed Lou Piniella fan.  The job he did with that gob of mediocrity he inherited in 2007 was nothing short of amazing.  In 2008, the Cubs were the best team in the National League, until Ryan Dempster shit his pants in game one of the playoffs (seven walks), and the infield followed suit in game two (four guys, four errors.)

Last year’s team wasn’t good, but there they were, on August 1 in first place.  Clearly, this man has no idea how to manage.  Good riddance.  Why, just dig through the couch cushions and I’m sure you’ll find an adequate replacement.

Lou didn’t deserve a better ending, but it would have been nice if he’d gotten one.  The current Cubs team is a mess.  All of their brilliance was on display yesterday.  Alfonso Soriano chasing after flyballs like he thought just maybe it was a grenade.  E-ramis Ramirez bailing and flailing at a routine ground ball so that his pal Derrek Lee could finally get his first Braves “hit.”  The bullpen setting itself on fire.  And amid all of the chaos, there was Starlin Castro.  Still, the youngest player in the National League, looking around and wondering why nobody else on the team is remotely as good as he is.  He had four more hits.  He also is the only Cub who looks upset when they screw something up.  Don’t lose that, kid.  Someday you’ll be on a winner and it’ll serve you well.  That winner will probably be in Boston or Anaheim, but still.

Of the first twelve outs the Cubs made, 10 of them were by strikeout.  The Braves had brought Randy Johnson out of retirement and…no, wait, it was Mike Minor.  Ugh.  I hate them now more than ever.

Today, Lou flies back to Tampa.  The Cubs have flown to Washington, DC where they can gauge just how much better Jim Riggleman’s Nationals are, than they are.  Excuse me while I find something sharp enough to stick through both eyes at the same time.

Mike Quade is the new manager.  He’s the first Cubs manager without eyebrows since Joey Amalfitano had his infamous fondue accident.

Yes, it’s true.  Mike Quade is hairless.  I don’t mean he’s just bald, I mean he’s like one of those Sphynx cats.  It’s just creepy.  He seems like a hell of a guy.  And, if he asked the Cubs and Ron Santo if he could wear #10 and put on a blonde Mo Howard wig, you couldn’t tell the difference between him and Bruce Kimm, could you?

But in a way, it’s fine that the Cubs set up a patsy to finish up this long, horrendous season.  It takes the attention off of them.  If they’d brought Bob Brenly down from the TV booth, or had Ryne Sandberg drive a tractor in from Des Moines, they’d be front page news for the rest of the season.  Instead, they gave the job to the least interesting man in the world, and hopefully he can do the impossible and squeeze the 12 more wins out of this team needed to avoid 100 losses.

Guh.

I’m not going to miss Lou Piniella.

I miss him already.

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Lee’s going to the Braves is surprising, because a) he’s sucked this year, b) his back is so fucked up he hasn’t played since Sunday and c) the Braves normally don’t do stupid shit like this.

But, these are the same Braves who thought trading for Rick Ankiel and The Farns at the trading deadline was a good idea.  They’re obviously all on crack down there in the ATL.

Our good friend Paul Sullivan has all of the juicy details, so let’s just rip off his story, shall we?

Cubs deal Lee to Braves for 3 pitching prospects

A dozen Derrek Lee jerseys were neatly folded and stacked up next to his locker Wednesday morning, but the Cubs first baseman was nowhere to be seen.

Sully can really paint a picture.  What the hell were the Cubs doing with 12 Lee jerseys?  Is Tommy singing the stretch on Friday?  OMG!  I’ll tell him about the Hep-C cure that I read about on Craigslist!

Lee declined to speak to the media concerning a Tribune report that a trade to Atlanta was in the works. He didn’t come out to the field and was receiving treatment on his lower back.But the deal is done, with the Cubs announcing after their 5-1 loss to the Padres that they had sent Lee and cash to the Braves for three pitching prospects: right-handers Robinson Lopez and Tyrelle Harris and left-hander Jeffrey Lorick.

Three guys for a guy hitting .251 and posting an OPS plus of 94?  Did I mention he has a bad back?  I have a Camry with 88,000 miles on it, maybe Frank Wren will trade me Melky Cabrera for it?

“A chance to go to the postseason, it’s hard to pass up,” Lee said in explaining why he agreed to waive his no-trade rights.

Well, three times you mean.  You already passed up a chance to play for the Angels (good move) and Rangers (not so much.)

“Most people should be excited in the way we’re moving forward,” Cubs general manager Jim Hendry said of the Cubs’ sell-off of veteran players.

We are Jim.  We’re so excited you could build a team that could be 21 games under .500 by mid-August so you could pay teams to take your players.  You’re doing a great job.  Now see if you can trade Kosuke and $12 million to Office Depot for paper for Pat and Ron’s fax machine.

Citing major-league sources, the Tribune’s David Kaplan first reported that a deal sending Lee to the Braves was close. One holdup has been Lee’s bad back, which has kept him sidelined the last two games.

Holy crap, you could actually see where Sullivan was cringing as he gave credit to Kaplan.  See, this is why we normally don’t let Crane Kenney know stuff like this.

The trade was first discussed Sunday evening when the Braves called Hendry and inquired about Lee as a potential replacement for Chipper Jones, who is out for the season with a knee injury.

Frank Wren: Jim, it’s Frank.  Chipper fucked up his knee.  It’s bad.  He can’t even limp to Hooters it’s so swollen.
Jim Hendry: Derrek Lee just fucked up his back.  He’s going to need an epidural.  Poor guy had to crap standing up in the shower after the game today.
Frank Wren: Stop right there.  You sold me!  I’ll take him!

As a 10-and-5 player, Lee could reject trades, as he did an earlier proposal that would have sent him to the Los Angeles Angels. But Lee was OK with going to Atlanta because the Braves are in contention for a World Series berth.

I like Derrek. Stand up guy, no excuses.  Always played hard.  I have no hard feelings over him stealing money in two of his seven years as a Cub.  Go get ‘em Derrek!

Addressing the “so-called curse” affecting the Cubs, Lee said, “Having to hear about losing kind of puts you in a negative environment.”

What?  Oh, go fuck yourself.  I hope you fall down the rickety steps from the visitor’s clubhouse to the dugout on Friday.

Asked if trading Lee would hurt the Cubs, outfielder Alfonso Soriano said, “Yeah, mentally. All those guys we traded are great guys and we feel like a family. So when you lose somebody like that it hurts you mentally.”

A family?  Susan Smith had a more functional family than this bunch.  Somebody get me a hammer and a life jacket.

The Cubs already have traded three members of the 2008 division-winning club — Ted Lilly, Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot — while releasing another, reliever Bob Howry. When Lee is gone, the Cubs likely will bring up Triple-A first baseman Micah Hoffpauir and platoon him with Xavier Nady.

Awesome job, Hendry.  So far he’s traded a solid pitcher, two dwarfs, a first baseman with a bad back and it took him two months to dump Bob Howry.  I have no idea how the rest of the NL Central can keep up with such brilliance.

Lee was asked Saturday about his decision to reject a trade to the Los Angeles Angels in the final week of July.

“First of all, when I made the decision, we weren’t playing this bad,” he told the Tribune. “I think I just separate it. I don’t look at it like, ‘Oh, I made the decision to stay, I wish I hadn’t.’ I made the decision, and that’s over with, and this is something else.”

First of all, the Cubs have been playing this bad all year.  Second of all, you didn’t have a second of all.  So why did you have a first of all?

Regardless, despite the awful line about fan negativity keeping the team from winning, I’m going to miss Derrek.  Classy guy.  Great defensive player.  Won a batting title.  Managed to keep batting third after that, even though he wasn’t nearly good enough to do it.  Bravo.

Lee apparently decided Sunday that a trade to Atlanta would be beneficial, while one to the Angels would have been a detriment to his impendng free agency. The Angels are on the periphery of a race, while Atlanta is in first-place in the NL East.

You know what would really help Lee’s free agent status?  Being able to stand up, and not being a below average offensive player for an entire season.  Good luck.

The Cubs play the Padres again tomorrow and then on Friday?  The Braves!  Atlanta has a home game with the Nats tomorrow, but I have a hunch Derrek will just wait for them to show up in Chicago on Friday.  Now that’s the kind of fire and determination that will really win over a guy’s new teammates, won’t it?

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We can take a minute to remember when he bailed out the 2007 Cubs by replacing a terrible Cesar Izturis and playing a passable shortstop.  We can remember that when the Cubs foolishly didn’t upgrade that position in 2008, and he posted a now-unbelievable .387 on base average.

That Ryan Theriot was a scrappy overachiever, filling a spot that he wasn’t talented enough to play, but making it work through sheer effort.

But it was mostly a mirage, and we all ignored the things that he couldn’t do until they piled up so high we couldn’t see around them anymore.

For a guy who made it to the big leagues by doing all of the little things, he had an embarrassingly poor understanding of the game and his own abilities.

His above average foot speed was useless on the basepaths because he was a terrible and completely uninstinctive baserunner.  His defense at short was inadequate.  Just like on the bases, his inability to put his speed to use meant he could run himself out of position better than any other player in either league.  And he constantly outplayed his arm.  He’d set up in places on the field that he couldn’t possibly throw out an average baserunner from.  His plate discipline was a tremendous asset in 2008 (he walked more–73 times–than he struck out that year–58 K’s), but it was non existent in 2009 (51 walks and 93 strikeouts), and got worse this year (46 K’s to only 19 walks).  He had such a long stretch without a walk this year that when he finally drew one in Houston he gave Lou Piniella a high five.  Lou was not amused.

In May, the Cubs called a real shortstop up from the minor leagues, and Theriot moved to second base.  It seemed like a good idea.  He didn’t have the arm or range for short, so maybe second would be good.  But he was terrible there.  It’s the position he’s going to play for the Dodgers, and God help them.

But there were two moments that sunk Theriot and led to the Cubs shipping him away.

The first happened two years ago.  He made a key error in game two of the 2008 NLDS against…the Dodgers.  He tried to field a double play grounder barehanded…nobody knows why, but he did.  He kicked it and the Cubs melted down in that inning, fell behind 2-0 in the series and the season was over.

The second was his winter.  Theriot took the Cubs to salary arbitration and “won” $2.6 million.  He wasn’t worth it, the Cubs didn’t like paying it and it was only a matter of time.

Theriot became a fan favorite at Wrigley Field.  Fans love bobbleheads, so it shouldn’t be a surprise.  It’s too bad the Dodgers have already played their series at Wrigley this year.  The dumbass masses are sure to give Ryan a standing ovation when he returns.  Ugh.

A lot of the appeal of Theriot came from things that weren’t true:

- He’s not a “kid.”  He’s 30 freakin’ years old.

- His best year, 2008 was when he was 28, just about the time players start their decline.  He’s never ever going to be that good again.  (And that wasn’t that great in the first place.)

- He’s a gritty player.  A “winner.”  Winners don’t get picked off first with regularity, and winners don’t give a way a month’s worth of at bats trying to hit homers that he doesn’t have the power to even threaten.

The cost of dumping Theriot on the Dodgers was including Ted Lilly in the deal.  The one Cub at the trade deadline with actual trade value, and they had to use him to get rid of this dope.

In return the Cubs get a pair of minor league pitchers.  One is Tim Wallach‘s kid.  We remember how well drafting Carney Lansford‘s kid has worked out for the Cubs.

And, they got Blake DeWitt, the son of “Three’s Company” star Joyce DeWitt.

Blake’s only 24, he’s a lefty batter who posted an OPS plus this year (while sharing second base with fucking Ronnie Belliard) of 99 (30 points higher than Theriot.)

DeWitt bats lefty, can play second, third and even short.  He’s Mark DeRosa, but a lefty hitter.  Interesting, if DeRosa had batted lefthanded he’d have spent all three years in Chicago.  The problem with being the next Mark DeRosa is that the original wasn’t any damned good until he was 30.

The Cubs seem hell bent on giving DeWitt the second base job.  It’s something he could never convince Joe Torre to, even as he was posting better numbers and performances than any other Dodger second baseman.

There’s no assurance that DeWitt can actually handle the full time job.

He hit nine homers in part time duty in 2008, but spent almost all of last year in AAA.  This year he’s batted 256 times, and has as many homers (1) as Theriot.

So if it doesn’t pan out and the Cubs traded Lilly and Theriot for nothing.  Not just nothing, but nothing and a check for $2.5 million, what does it mean?

It still means that Ted Lilly was the best free agent signing of Jim Hendry’s Cubs tenure.  Lilly’s the guy he famously signed while being wheeled in for an angioplasty at the 2006 winter meetings.  Four years, $40M and it ended with him going 47-36 with a 3.70 ERA.  His biggest problem previously had been his control, but in four years with the Cubs he struck out 598 and walked only 184.  He also got rocked in game two of the NLDS against Arizona in 2007 and whipped his glove into the ground, which was…interesting.

There’s talk that Ted will consider coming back to the Cubs this offseason, and that the Cubs are interested.  Trading him to the Dodgers is a step in that direction.  They are unlikely to offer him arbitration, so the Cubs would be able to resign him without giving up any draft picks.

But, Lilly’s 34, he’s coming off army surgery and his fastball is hanging out in the mid to high 80s.  It might be best to just remember the four years of the Ted Lilly era fondly, and not try to push it.

The deadline came and went and Kosuke Fukudome, Derrek Lee and Carlos Zambrano are all still Cubs.  Kosuke and Carlos will sail through waivers, so they could still be traded in August.  There’s just one small problem.  Who the hell would want either one of them?

And Lee turned down a chance to be traded to the LA Angels of Anaheim, and said he didn’t want to be traded anywhere.  Now I can see turning down a chance to play for a team that’s not going to catch the Rangers, but teams with an actual shot at the playoffs, like the Rangers and Giants were interested and Derrek basically said, “Nah.”

Apparently winning the World Series with the 2003 Marlins was so awesome, Derrek doesn’t want to ever crowd that memory with anything else.

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Lou’s agent let the news out today, which made Lou mad because he hadn’t told the team yet, which led to this awkward exchange in the clubhouse.

Starlin Castro: Mister Lou, I hear you are leaving.
Lou Piniella: Ah, ah, ah, let me tell you Sterling, don’t believe everything you read in the papers.
Starlin: How come you get to leave now, and I have to wait six years to get out of here?
Lou Piniella: Because life ain’t fair, kid.

I’m on the record, over and over and over again with my professed manly love for Lou.  He’s the best manager the team had had in 70 years (not that the bar is really high to clear, there), but I knew when they hired him after the awful 2006 season that it was four years (hell, it might have only been three) and out.

Lou made a splash early in his first season.  He changed the lineup every day because the team was losing and he basically tried anything to see what would work.  And before it was too late, the team took off and ended up winning a very lousy NL Central.

The next year they won 97 games before choking away the playoffs in three games.

Last year, he somehow steered a lousy team into first place on August 2 before they careened out of the race.

This year, well this year has been awful.  Like in 2007, Lou’s tried everything.  He’s batted guys all over the place, he’s shuffled the lineup.  He even banished Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen in a move that we all thought was asinine.  Simple fact is, as mediocre as Tom Gorzelanny is, he’s a better pitcher than Zambrano is now.  That’s sad.  But the bad move wasn’t moving Zambrano to the bullpen, it was taking him back out of it.

But give Lou credit.  He saved the 2007 season by playing Ryan Theriot at short because the team didn’t have anybody better, and he tried to save the 2010 season by kicking the little bastard off shortstop as soon as the Cubs called up a guy who is markedly better.

Lou tried lots of stuff.  Some of it was brilliant.  Some of it was boneheaded.  Some of it worked. Some of it didn’t.  But working didn’t it make it brilliant any more than not working made it boneheaded.

For once the Cubs had a real manager who came up with ideas and put them to practice.  In four years he had three bad teams and one really good one, and the sad fact is that the one really good one–in the end–didn’t do a goddamned thing.  He held his players accountable, but didn’t throw them under the bus to the media, and that must made the meatheads among us think that he didn’t really care.

I wish nothing but the best for those of you who think Lou didn’t care.  By the best, I mean that I hope somebody hits you in the face with a big bag of syphilis.

His tenure with the Cubs will be judged a failure, because the Cubs didn’t go to a World Series, and that’s fair.  That’s what we’re all watching this shit for anyway, the off-chance that at some point it will all pay off for us.

But you can’t say it wasn’t interesting (more interesting than most of the 62 seasons before he arrived), you can’t say it wasn’t entertaining (more entertaining than those same 62 seasons), and you’re all about to find out something the hard way.

Those of you, and there are many, who are glad he’s leaving.

You’re going to miss him.  Because they aren’t going to find somebody better to replace him.

The new guy will just be different.

Maybe it will be milquetoast Ryne Sandberg, the golden boy Cub player who did all the right things in prepping to be a manager.  I hope this works out, but I’ll be honest with you, it won’t.

Maybe it will be Bob Brenly, a far better analyst than he ever was a manager, and a guy who won a World Series in 2001 as a skipper, despite a string of in-game decisions that set World Series baseball back a generation.  You get lucky like that maybe once in a 1,000,000 years, so the sun will have imploded and the Earth will be an icy rock before Bob’s turn rolls around again.  And he’ll probably have BK Kim up in the bullpen just in case.

It won’t be Joe Girardi, because nobody leaves the Yankees for the Cubs unless it’s a trade, and when that happens they cry a lot.

Or maybe it will be somebody else.

So enjoy your moment.  Say and write your mean things about Lou.  Go on ponderous rants about how he didn’t have the fire anymore or how he should have thrown bases around or wiped his ass with his hat and shoved it in the umpire’s face.  Let it out.  Let it all out.

And get ready to watch subsequent Cubs teams that won’t be as well managed as the ones we’ve seen for four seasons.  And then think about what kind of suck that’s going to look and sound like.

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