The Cubs announced yesterday that Ryne Sandberg is going to manage the AAA Iowa Cubs this season. This news, that their beloved Hall of Fame second baseman is that much closer to managing the “real” Cubs has some Cubs fans really excited. Then again, some Cubs fans get really excited about buying one of those big, foam, red and blue bear paws. In other words, because there are lots of Cubs fans, there are lots of really dumb Cubs fans.
Now I’m not saying that if you want Sandberg to be the manager some day, or that if you think he’ll be a really good manager that you are dumb.
But I am saying that if you are in a hurry for him to manage the Cubs, then yes, you are dumb.
The Cubs currently have a good manager, the best manager they’ve employed since Charlie Grimm. I’m not even making that up, that’s how many lousy managers the Cubs have had. In true Cubs style, Grimm managed the team from 1932 to 1938, then again from 1945-1949 and then again in 1960. In 1960 he only lasted 50 games and then left for health reasons. He was sick of watching the Cubs lose. They swapped him for Lou Boudreau, and Lou came out of the radio booth to manage, and Charlie went up to announce. He won three pennants with the Cubs a manager and player/manager.
From 1949 until now the Cubs have had 32 men manage the team for more than two games (there’s an odd Rene Lachemann here and a John Vukovich there) and of those thirty-two men, guess how many of them finished their Cubs careers with a .500 record or better?
Five! Five of 32. What a proud franchise we root for.
Those five are Jim Lefebvre (.500), Leo Durocher (.504), Don Zimmer (.507), Jim Frey (.519) and Lou Piniella (.548). So by all means, lets get rid of Lou as quickly as possible.
Chances are that Lou is going to retire after this season. That was his plan all along, but he’s starting to think twice about it, and you can tell. Last night he was on the MLB Network with Bobby Cox and they were talking about how this was going to be Bobby’s last year, and Lou had plenty of chances to point out that he was leaving, too, but he didn’t.
I am an unapologetic Lou supporter. I was glad when they hired him, and I’m glad he’s still there. How quickly we forget how much the culture on the team has changed from not just the Dusty Baker regime, but every one before it. The Cubs had a crap year last year, everybody got hurt and even a few who didn’t just sucked, and we’ve seen it all before, and it always ended with them completely tanking and going 68-94. But they’re a real baseball franchise now, one that doesn’t just look for the first excuse to get in a bag and drown, and while 83-78 sucks, it showed where the bottom ought to be for this franchise.
It’s a franchise with a $140 million payroll, in the third largest market in the country, in a division full of medium-market teams. Eighty-three wins should be the fewest this franchise wins in a given year.
I credit a lot of that to Lou. Now I cannot argue with you that the postseasons have been disastrous. How can you argue about 0-6 in two trips? You can’t. And, you can certainly argue that there’s no way Carlos Zambrano should have left game one in 2007 after six innings, or that Kosuke should have been on the bench in game two in 2008 and that it’s awful that Ted Lilly didn’t get a start in those playoffs.
But I also don’t believe that the 2007 Cubs are in the playoffs without Lou, and that turning this woeful franchise around this quickly allowed them to build on it for 97 wins in 2008.
Given the state of the NL Central, and the fact that the Cubs should be pretty good again in 2010, if they flop like they did last year again, then you can make your case that it’s time for a change.
Even then, I’m not so sure that I’d hire Ryne Sandberg.
Being a great player won’t make you a great manager. And neither will bolstering your tough guy image by getting thrown out of lots of minor league baseball games. I just get this image in my mind of seeing Sandberg standing in the dugout looking confusedly at the field wondering what the hell is wrong with this team. I don’t really want to see that happen.
But you guys know that I’m wrong about lots of stuff. So I could certainly be wrong about this. But for the life of me, I just can’t understand what the hurry is. Are we worried that another big league team will swoop in and hire him? That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. I don’t think the Cubs should be a team that breaks in new managers. You don’t think it helped Joe Girardi to go manage in Florida for a year before he took over the Yankees? You don’t think Terry Francona was better prepared for what he was in for in Boston because he’d managed the Phillies?
Sure it could work, and if it did, it would be really cool. But how many really cool things ever happen for the Cubs?
I can vividly see Ryno being the Cubs manager from 2011-2030 (or something like that) and bagging the Cubs 10-15 WS Championships…That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen…I’m just saying
well touche, that would be lovely, but really? you think they will get 10-15 WS Championships in 20 years?!?!?!
I would’ve bet and won a million dollars that Dolan would’ve hacked out an anti-Sandberg post within an hour.
“Hurry”? How many Hall of Famers have spent four years toiling in the minor leagues as a manager in order to get the necessary experience? And getting kicked out of games isn’t necessarily a ploy to enhance his tough-guy image. Have you seen a Midwest League game in the past five years? These umps are brutal.
The sun coming up in the east, Dolan blasting baseball players under 6-foot-2, making fun of every media member, and trying to keep Ryno down on the farm.
Sandberg will replace the hairless one coaching third next year. In 2012, he’ll probably get the chance to manage. By that point, would he really want to though?
Getting thrown out doesn’t make the umpiring better. I think Sandberg’s just doing it to get a head start on heading down to Hooters for the night.
The problem is that once you hire a guy like Ryno, it becomes almost impossible to get rid of him if it doesn’t work out. The large majority of fans would go nuts if the Cubs fired Sanderg (especially if it happens within a couple years of him being manager), so he would have to be REALLY bad for the organization to sack him. Either way, the Cubs suffer.
Unless, of course, everything works out and he’s a really good manager.
My legacy in Detroit was in no way tarnished by my stellar managerial record there. Everything will be neat-o for Sandberg. After all, he was undoubetdly the vocal leader on those wildly successful Cubs teams of the early to mid 90’s.
You know, if he ever comes out and says that he think Ryan Theriot sucks, I might change my mind about Sandberg as manager.
T.J. Z. is totally right. The Blackhawks, for instance, never recovered in the public’s eye after they shit-canned me. I hear that everyone stopped giving a shit about them and hated them after I got the pink slip.
I have no recollection of Grimm as a player, but as a manager he was very popular. Some of that had to do with his history as a Cub player, but for kids like me he was one of the reasons for going to the games. He not only managed, he was the third base coach, and at least once during any game he would put on a little skit while sending signals to the batter. There were paid baseball “clowns” who entertained fans during the game. Al Schatz (sp?) comes to mind. Charlie fell into that category for us. We loved his routines.
Best Manager since Charlie Grimm?
Where’s the love for Jim Essian?
Sandberg is my favorite player of all time, but if you read any of his old Yahoo sports columns, you’ll want him as far from the Cubs manager’s seat as possible.
This is a man who said he couldn’t totally disregard the possibility that the Cubs were cursed.
I think Trammell is a much better fit to replace Pinella (if he retires) than Sandberg. Yes, Trammell had some disastrous in Detroit, but they gave him very little talent, the talent he did have was quite young, and he will have been at Pinella’s side the last four seasons.
There are plenty of managers out there who were terrible for one franchise and then found success with another. Francona, Torre, Manuel, etc.
I don’t think Sandberg is ready to manage at the ML level yet.
I’d have preferred that Sandberg coach 3B this season and send Quade back to AAA for a year to work with Starlin Castro. Quade seems like a good organizational guy and should realize that he’d be back on the major league staff in 2011.
Then we could see if Sandberg and Trammell would be able to co-exist, and they could both demonstrate why they should replace Lou in 2011.
Remember, Lou’s entire coaching experience before managing was as a hitting coach for two seasons, and half a season as a Ken Harrelson-type Yankees “GM” under Furious George.
ooooh…pick me instead…please please please please.
“I just get this image in my mind of seeing Sandberg standing in the dugout looking confusedly at the field wondering what the hell is wrong with this team.”
Compared to:
I kept seeing this image on my tv of Lou Piniella standing in the dugout looking confusedly at the field wondering what the hell is wrong with this team.
Now for the most part I agree with you.
Sans the undying love for Lou and the unreasonable dislike of Sandberg.
Andy, you have a little Lou there on your lip.
mmmmmmmmm, I hope Ryno’s ex wife comes along for the ride.