The worst kept secret in baseball (I mean other than tHom Brennaman’s toupee) was let out of the bag today when the Cubs announced that Lou Piniella was going to pack it in at the end of this horrendous season.
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.
.
Sun’s not gonna implode, man.
Lou’s an asshole then. Because I’m certain he’s happy.
So no Lou next year, but Hendry will still be there? Crap, we’re screwed. There is no one as good as Lou out there who is willing to go to Chicago, unless maybe Joe Torre loses a bet.
Andy, c’mon now, I know that deep down inside, you want me to come back and manage the Cubs ! I’m the only guy who can whip Big Z back into shape. He just needs some of my Tough Love and lots more innings.
Please, please, please Rickettses, tell me that you are just biding time until the end of the season to spring upon us the firing of Kenney & Hendry!! I just know that Hendry heading up the coach search is some kind of cruel in-joke. Right? Right???
I can’t take credit for this, but whoever said the USMC needs to manage these fuckers for a season wasn’t too far off.
I’m a former Marine.
Waaaaa-Waaaaa. Lou is leaving. What ever will we do? Waaaaa-Waaaaa.
Andy needs his blanky?
Lou retired midway through last year, he just made it official yesterday.
I could not care less about Lou’s retirement or you endless pining.
“You’re going to miss him. Because they aren’t going to find somebody better to replace him.” He’s the best ever. There will never ever be anyone better.
You sound like an 8 year old.
I do agree that Girardi probaly won’t leave NY until they actually can him.
Brenly is a better analyst than manager.
But Ryno is “milquetoast”? Either you are too young or too dumb to actually understand what Ryno brings to the table. But calling him milquetoast? Come on.
Either you are too young or too dumb to actually understand what Ryno brings to the table.
He can bring me to the table so long as it’s filled with South American delicacies…yummm!
How YOU doin’?
Ryno! He has the fire and the passion! He will keep his players in line just like Cutch Ditker did!
you can have girardi. seriously. please…please…take girardi… if cashman didn’t spend 14 trillion bucks of steinbrenner money in a decent way and it’s shocking, but he does do it once every 5 years, right carl pavano? but if it weren’t for cashman, the yankees wouldn’t have won. girardi tried to manage us out of the playoffs. he helped the al lose to the nl for fuck’s sake. please, take girardi.
Thanks Jim, but not interested in the cubs or your donut crumbs
Do any of us here actually know what kind of manager Ryno will be? He certainly wants it. I mean, bussing around the Pacific Coast league for four years? Ain’t nobody does that cause it’s fun. But the truth is, no matter who replaces Lou, the team will suck balls if we don’t get a GM who knows how to fill out a 25 man roster without backloaded contracts and miniature infielders.
Next year, the person who throws out the first ball & sings the stretch will also manage the cubs for the day.
It’s gonna hai
A roundtable on this subject ought not end without my input. A swell fellow is Ryne, as well my brother in milquetoastiness. May he give his all in winning every match!
How about us?
Don’t rule me out.
I’m available.
Holy crap, Dolan. You’re still alive? I thought you’d died back in 2004, along side your talent. Reading these blog entries is torture.
three words — colvin, castro, colvin. and ten more words we might be alright if we hire the right manager.
cashner oops
(character eagerly raises hand, Arnold Horschack, style) Oh, oh, oh…..Mr. Ricketts !! Me ! What about me ! I can manage the Cubs…aw, c’mon, Mr. Ricketts, call on me, please !!
Eh, what the hell. I suppose I’ll take the job. Surprise fuckers!
I’ve had my eyes on this day since Lou was hired before 07
I’m not leaving and I hope you ass holes are happy.
Watching my Beloved Satanics play the NY Pond Scum on ESPEN, and during a break to watch Mr. Cocktober go for #600 (and “he popppppppped it up” as Dearly Departed Harry would have said), the off-camera announcer says, “And now back to the Mets and Cards at Shiti Field”.
I kid you not.
I suppose he was going to say “Shea” and changed courses midstream to “Citi”.
I’m tellin’ ya, you can’t make this stuff up.
PS, Andrew, say hi to your brother-in-law for me. He sounds like a wonderful gentleman to me.
Yours truly,
The Devil from Down Under
(well, under I-74, anyway)