For those of you who were still wondering, Rick Morrissey is still an idiot.  I can’t imagine too many of you were actually wondering, but if you were, I’m happy to provide the confirmation you need.

Yesterday, Morrissey continued the demise of the daily newspaper in America with a pointless article apparently designed to offend the obese and make a weird case against hiring Mike Quade as Cubs manager.

Since Quade does 1200 squat thrusts every morning and hasn’t ingested a carb since Clinton’s first term, that makes two different audiences that Rick was trying to offend.

In a nutshell, Morrissey’s column made a flimsy case that if the Cubs are still waiting around to see if Joe Girardi wants to stop managing the New York Yankees so he can start managing them next year, it must mean that Joe is telling somebody who is telling somebody that it’s exactly what he wants to do.

That’s not a terrible argument, which is why Morrissey doesn’t stop there.

You know what?  This is going to require us to do something I never advise.  We’re going to have to read this column so we can appreciate its stupidity.

Why would Cubs delay picking manager unless Joe Girardi’s interested?

That’s a bang up headline, especially if you like ten word headlines.  Holy crap, even his editors are gasbags.

Lots of people in New York are having a hard time understanding why Joe Girardi would even consider leaving the Yankees for the Cubs.

If that’s true, then lots of people in New York realize that on the sliding scale of baseball’s managerial jobs that the Yankees job is “Superterrific” and the Cubs job is “hopeless.”

Of course, these are the same people who can’t understand why anyone would choose to live outside the New York metropolitan area. Tell them you’re tired of hearing about Bobby Thomson’s home run off Ralph Branca in 1951 and watch them gather the stake, the firewood and the accelerant.

Timely.  And a reference that makes you wonder what a homer hit almost 50 years ago in a game between the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers has to do with somebody trying to decide whether to manage the Yankees or Cubs.

What they’re failing to grasp is the almost hypnotic attraction the Cubs’ job might have for someone such as Girardi, who grew up in Peoria, went to Northwestern and fully appreciates the hazards involved.

I think what they’re failing to grasp is why you’re talking to fans about two teams who left the New York metro area to go to the west coast almost 50 years ago about this.  But if Joe Girardi is hypnotized by anything it really can’t be the allure of managing Alfonso Soriano for four years, can it?  If it is, he’s more delusional than the Sun-Times executive who thought “stealing” you away from the Tribune was anything but a money bonfire.

It’s like this: You know you shouldn’t eat a double-chocolate doughnut because you weigh 340 pounds and you’re about a molecule of fatty plaque away from a heart attack, but it is speaking to you in such a personal, loving way that resistance seems futile.

This attempt at humor is so banal that it basically sums up your entire history of writing…everything.  You just compared choosing between two high paying jobs to a fat slob hallucinating that a doughnut is begging to be eaten.  Good one.  I can’t wait to see what other comedic gems you have for us.  Do tell!

History tells us that the manager’s job on the North Side is not good for anyone. It doesn’t last very long, and it almost always ends badly.

My turn with the obvious joke.  It’s exactly what your wife describes sex with you to be.

But … what if? It’s the most intoxicating question in baseball for anyone who calls himself a manager: What if I’m the guy who leads the Cubs to a World Series title for the first time since 1908?

What tense are you writing in?  Are you being Girardi now or are you volunteering to manage the Cubs?

And let me answer your poorly worded question-ette.  If you’re the guy who manages the Cubs to a World Series title it would be pretty great, but six years later, even if you’ve added another World Series win with the team to your resume and take an injury riddled team and lead them to 89 wins, fans will want you fired.  Just ask this guy.  Baseball fans are three things opinionated, vocal and mostly, wrong.

It’s the kind of thought that makes otherwise thoughtful, intelligent men lose their senses. Of course no one who wants to collect World Series rings would leave the Yankees.

It’s obviously not the kind of thought that makes otherwise thoughtful, intelligent men lose their senses.  Nobody has voluntarily left a job managing a great team to come take on the allure of the Cubs since…ever.

Let’s take a look at the last few Cubs managers and see where they came from:

Mike Quade (2010) — Was coaching third base for the Cubs.
Lou Piniella (2007) — Steve Lyons was accusing him of trying to steal his wallet on Fox TV.
Dusty Baker (2003) — The Giants ran him out of town despite winning the 2002 pennant.  In hindsight, a little bit of a red flag.
Bruce Kimm (2002) — Managing the famed Iowa Cubs
Rene Lachemann (2002) — Sitting next to Don Baylor and wondering why his parents gave him a chick’s name.
Don Baylor (2000) — Had been canned by the Colorado Rockies in 1998.
Jim Riggleman (1995) — Here you go!  He was actually managing in 1994 and left a team to join the Cubs.  Of course, he managed the 47 win Padres.  Never mind.
Tom Trebelhorn (1994) — Was hanging out by a fire station in full uniform chatting with fans.  And was on Jim Lefebvre’s coaching staff in 1993.
Jim Lefebvre (1992) — Had just been asked not to return to the Seattke Mariners despite giving them their first winning season ever (and finishing in fifth place both years he was there.)
Don Zimmer (1988) — Hadn’t managed in six years and that was a 38 win stint with the Texas Rangers.  They just won their first playoff series ever…last week.
Frank Luccesi (1987) — Somebody woke him up and told him Gene Michael quit.
Gene Michael (1986) — Here you go!  He came from the Yankees where he’d been a coach, manager and front office worker since his retirement as a player in 1975.  He took over the second half of the season in 1986, then managed the Cubs for 136 games in 1987…and then quit.  And went back to the Yankees.
John Vukovich (1986) — Second time he thought he was going to get to be the Cubs manager, this time he held the job for all of two games.
Jim Frey (1984) — Had been out of a job since the Royals whacked him during his second season as manager.

Do we need to go on?  Have we bludgeoned the point home yet?  Nobody gives up a good job to manage the Cubs.

Wait a minute … or a month

It’s why the Cubs have to wait and wait and wait for Girardi, who is preoccupied with getting past the Rangers and into the World Series.

He’s too busy running a good team in the playoffs to be worried about a bad one that was eliminated from the 2010 playoffs in April.

Have back-channel discussions been going on between the Cubs and people who claim to speak for Girardi? I have no idea.

Other things Rick Morrissey has no idea about:

• Why do newspapers keep paying me to write for them when nobody thinks I’m any good?
• Should this mole be this color?
• Was that hooker really dead or just unconscious?

But the longer this goes on, the more you’d have to believe the Cubs have received indications that Girardi is interested.

Well, there are other teams with managerial openings.  Like the Marlins, Mets, Brewers and Pirates and they haven’t named a manager yet.  Maybe they’re waiting for Girardi, too?  Or maybe they think Charlie Manuel is tired of winning, too and he might want to manage their teams.  Maybe the Cubs are waiting because they can?

(If it turns out that Cubs general manager Jim Hendry never gave Girardi the time of day, somebody ought to open up an inquest.)

I’d like to open up an inquest as to why you needed to couch that hilarious statement in parentheses.  (Somebody get me a stenographer!)

A month ago, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts said the next manager has to arrive with his eyes open.

Maybe he said that because his brother Todd likes to arrive with his eyes closed, while riding a bike, and Todd goes through Bactine by the shit-ton.

”We have to have a manager who really understands … the scrutiny you get and [must] be able to handle those periods in June when you lose three games in a row and people start talking about Year 103 of the Curse,” he said. ”We have to have someone who understands what they’re getting into.”

This is all well and good, but the reason that the two most recent high profile managers the Cubs hired failed to win a World Series had more to do with other teams having better players, and not so much that they didn’t understand whatever the hell the “curse” is.  If Dusty had a semblance of a bullpen in 2003 they win the World Series.  If Lou didn’t have to send a converted closer out to pitch game one of a playoff series and play a dwarf at shortstop, maybe the Cubs actually win a playoff game in 2007 or 2008.  Crazy talk, I know.

Ryne Sandberg knows what it means to be a Cub.

You bet your ass he does.  He was a great player and he played on two really good teams and a dozen shitty ones, and what that has to do with how well he can manage is news to all of us.

He understands the culture at Wrigley Field. It’s where his support originated and where it now resides. The people with warm memories of Ryno from 1984 see him as the obvious choice for the manager’s job.

I’m a Cubs fan and even I don’t understand the culture at Wrigley Field.  It’s like 20 percent made up of people who were born when the Kaiser was ruling Germany and who can’t see the field through their cataracts, 40 percent drunk Chads and Trixies standing with their backs to their field trying to get another bar on their iPhone, 20 percent Iowa tourists who just spent $14 for red and blue beads to wear around their necks and 19.9 percent people irritated by the 80 percent that has them surrounded, and Al Yellon.

Give me Girardi, who understands the culture but wasn’t marinated in it and isn’t beholden to it.

Wasn’t marinated in it?  He had two stints there.  The second one he was basically there as a coach at the behest of Don Baylor.  He was so much “a Cub” that when Daryle Kile died in a hotel room hours before a game, the Cubs had Joe–in full uniform–explain it to the crowd.  The only reason he might consider actually leaving a great job to come to the Cubs is because he’s so much “a Cub” and you state the exact opposite of that as a reason why he’d be perfect?  You are a special brand of dumb.

Give me someone who doesn’t care about Harry Caray’s glasses or Leon Durham’s five-hole or Ozzy Osbourne’s seventh-inning-stretch rendition.

If you can find me a quote that either Ryne Sandberg or Mike Quade say they care about Harry’s glasses, Leon’s crotch or Ozzy’s stretch abomination and I will give you 12 billionty dollars.

Give me someone who has won a World Series as a manager, even if he did it with a collection of All-Stars.

You know who wins World Series’ with collections of All-Stars?  Every manager who’s ever won a goddamned World Series.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the best teams usually have the best players.  It’s like how the best newspapers have the best writers, and how they never ask you to work for them.

Forget about Quade

Mike Quade replaced Lou Piniella and did a nice job, leading the Cubs to a 24-13 finish. Much has been made of the fact that several veterans have endorsed the baseball lifer. You mean the veterans who haven’t won anything in Chicago? Those veterans?

You make a great point.  Why would a team want to hire someone who actually won games with that team?  And for goshsakes if the guys who are going to be on the team next year, and who actually played decent baseball for a change with that guy in charge want him back, well that obviously disqualifies him.

If Hendry is smart, he’ll ignore the Quade testimonials. You don’t choose a manager based on the opinions of players who might not be around in two years.

It took him a long time (for him) but he finally got his straw man built.  Mike Quade is the status quo.  He’s the choice of the lazy, overpaid veteran.  Hiring him just reinforces E-ramis Ramirez’s desire to use third base as a pillow and for Ryan Dempster to try to distract hitters with coin tricks.  If you hire Mike Quade the terrible-ists win!  Paid for by People Dumb Enough to Read Rick Morrissey.

And what are players going to say when reporters ask them about a man who might be the manager next season? That they don’t like him? Not a prudent answer if you’re concerned about future plate appearances or innings pitched.

Because if there’s one thing highly paid veteran baseball players care about it’s how commenting on a managerial search in September is going to affect the playing time that their bloated contracts guarantee them in April.

Give me Girardi. When the Yankees came to town to play the White Sox in late August, it was interesting what he didn’t say to the media.

Things Joe Girardi didn’t say to the media in late August:

• Holy shit, look at all that snow!
• Where can I reserve my 2016 Olympic tickets?
• You mean Morrissey and George Castle both still have jobs?
• I hate the Cubs.

Given the chance, he never said he wasn’t interested in the job Piniella had just vacated.

It’s almost as if he knew he’d have a contract to renegotiate in November and that he’d really like to have some leverage so he could get a raise.

He said he already had a job. He said he was concentrating on the task at hand.

Don’t you hate it when people tell the truth?

Maybe he doesn’t want what he coveted four years ago. But the Cubs need to find out for sure before they make a move.

I thought your whole point was that you think the Cubs know Joe is interested and that’s why they’re waiting.  But then you tried to make like four other points, and you haven’t made any, which is what we’re used to.  So what are you on about now?

For Yankees fans, it’s a no-brainer. These are the Bronx Bombers! All that history! All those championships! And all these opportunities to win more! Why would anyone leave this job?

All of that is true!  And why are you using exclamation points?!!  Did you just tear your scrotum?!!!

Why?

Huh?  Who?  What the fuck are you doing?

It brings to mind an ad that explorer Ernest Shackleton purportedly placed in a newspaper before one of his Antarctic expeditions in the early 1900s:

”Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success.”

Which expedition are you referring to, the one where he lost his ship in the ice or the one that he died on?

The Cubs’ job is like that, only with day games.

Bazinga!

You do realize, Rick, that you just prattled on for like 1800 words and never actually made a coherent point.  But you’ve been doing that without fail for a couple of decades now.  You’re like the Cal Ripken of terrible sportswriting!

Here’s what we know, Ricky.  If you are for something (Joe Girardi leaving the most successful North American sports franchise to voluntarily take charge of the worst) then we can all find firm ground being against it.