Why won’t anyone hire Ryne?

Nov 22, 2011 | Cubs, Featured | 9 comments

Life is tough these days for Ryne Sandberg.  Sure, he’s still sitting on a pile of millions of dollars from his playing career, he make can thousands more whenever he wants just by virtue of the fact he gets to sign “HOF” next to his autograph (that does not stand for House of FrenchFries, though that seems like an awesome idea for a restaurant chain).  He’s a Hall of Famer, a baseball legend, and, by all accounts one of the really nice people you’re ever going to meet.

So why is life so rough?  Well, you see, Ryne Sandberg wants to be a big league manager.  He wants to do it so badly that five years ago he called then Cubs general manager Jim Hendry’s bluff and took him up on an offer to manage the club’s class-A team in Peoria.  That should have proven his dedication right there.  Nobody moves to Peoria on purpose.

After a couple of years in Peoria, Sandberg moved up to the Cubs’ double-A club in Tennessee.  To prove how serious he was at that job he learned to play the banjo.  (I have no idea if that’s true, but it ought to be.)  After one season there, Sandberg was sent to the Cubs triple-A affiliate in Des Moines.  I have no idea what he did to be sent to Des Moines, but it must have been pretty bad.  But Sandberg made chicken salad out of the chicken shit that covers Des Moines and won the Pacific Coast League Manager of the Year Award.  It’s a prestigious award, won by such luminaries as current (for now at least) Cubs bench coach Pat Listach and recently shitcanned Cubs manager Mike Quade.  Clearly, winning the PCL Manager of the Year Award is the final step on anyone’s journey to greatness.

During that season in Iowa, then-Cubs manager Lou Piniella retired.  Retired seems like an apt description.  He was already tired of watching that awful 2010 play baseball and after a few days off to tend to his ailing mother he came back and got re-tired of it all over again and so he went home for good.

That opened the top spot, and Sandberg was in a perfect position to grab it.  He’d put in the work.  He’d (awful cliche alert!) paid his dues.  It was his time.

Only one problem.  Hendry didn’t hire him.  He hired Quade.  Sandberg was mad.  Fans were engorged.  (Engorged?)  And Sandberg got his other dream job, that as the manager of the Phillies AAA Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs.

Quade flopped.  Hendry got fired.  The Cubs hired Theo Epstein to replace Hendry.  Theo immediately called Sandberg!  Oh happy day.  Here was Ryne’s chance!  Except the call went to voicemail, and Theo basically said:

Ryne Sandberg?  This is Theo Epstein.  I’m the new president of baseball operations for the Cubs and I wanted to call you and…tell you that we’re going to hire a manager who has either managed or coached in the big leagues, neither of which you’ve done.  But hey, thanks for being a great player and all of that stuff.  Good luck with the Iron Pigs.

Was Sandberg upset?  He insists that this time he wasn’t.  He understood what Theo was doing.  The Cubs were going to need an experienced hand to guide them through the morass of rebuilding the organization from the bottom up.  And hey, the Cardinals called and wanted to interview him.  Ooh, if he got the Cardinals’ job he could really shove it up the Cubs’ asses couldn’t he?

He went to St. Louis and he interviewed for the job.  The Cardinals told reporters that Sandberg was a great interview and he was a top candidate for any big league job.  What that meant was, “We’re not hiring him.”

But Sandberg wasn’t upset about that either.  Terry Francona interviewed for the Cardinals job.  The guy who won two World Series with the Red Sox.  You can’t argue with a resume like that.

Meanwhile, Theo was lining up guys to be the “experienced hand” to guide the Cubs, and none of them had ever been more than an interim big league manager.

The Cardinals made a decision and hired their new manager.  They picked Mike Matheny.  He’d never been a big league or minor league manager or coach.

The Cubs hired their new manager.  They hired Dale Sveum.  He had been a big league manager for three weeks in 2008 when he took over when Ned Yost turned purple with rage and frustration and incompetence as the Brewers were pissing away a sure fire playoff berth.  Dale took over at Wrigley and lost three of four games to the Cubs.  But he did manage to keep the Brewers from completely blowing their lead and he managed them in their four game loss to the Phillies in the NLDS.  The Brewers were so impressed with Dale that they hired Ken Macha to manage the team.  Then, with Dale still on the staff when they fired Ken Macha, they hired Ron Roenicke to manage.

So Sandberg lost out on the Cubs job to a guy the Brewers would only hire on a temp basis, and he lost the Cardinals job to a guy who had to retire because he’d suffered too many concussions as a player and who had spent the last few years blowing all of his money (and then some) on awful real estate investments.

You’d forgive Sandberg if he spent the last two weeks shouting, over and over again:

I WAS TOLD THERE WERE DUES TO PAY! WHAT ABOUT THE DUES?  DID I FORGET TO SIGN ‘HOF’ ON THE CHECK?

He’s spent the last five years busting his ass and riding buses for what?  So he could miss out on the exact same jobs that he was missing out before he decided to pay those illustrious dues?

It has to boggle his mind.  He saw first hand that eventually baseball teams will hire ANYBODY to manage.  Look at some of the geniuses he had to play for:

  • Lee Elia
  • Charlie Fox
  • Two days of John Vukovich
  • Gene Michael
  • Frank Lucchesi
  • Jim Lefebvre
  • Tom Trebelhorn
  • Jim Riggleman
The two best guys he played for were Jim Frey and Don Zimmer.  Frey blew the 1984 playoffs and was gone a year and a half later and Zimmer has a plate in his head.
Since Sandberg started “paying his dues” in 2007 the following guys have gotten manager jobs in the big leagues:
  • Jerry Manuel (Mets)
  • Fredi Gonzalez (Marlins and Braves)
  • Edwin Rodriguez (Marlins)
  • Eighty year old Jack McKeon (Marlins)
  • Manny Acta (Nationals and Indians)
  • Jim Riggleman! (Mariners and Nationals)
  • Mike Quade (Cubs)
  • Dale Sveum (Cubs)
  • Dusty Baker (Reds)
  • Cecil Cooper (Astros)
  • Dave Clark (Astros)
  • Brad Mills (Astros)
  • Ken Macha (Brewers)
  • Ron Roenicke (Brewers)
  • John Russell (Pirates)
  • Clint Hurdle (Pirates)
  • Mike Matheny (Cardinals)
  • AJ Hinch (Diamondbacks)
  • Kirk Gibson (Diamondbacks)
  • Jim Tracy (Rockies)
  • Joe Torre (Dodgers)
  • Don Mattingly (Dodgers)
  • Juan Samuel (Orioles)
  • Buck Showalter (Orioles)
  • Joe Girardi (Yankees)
  • Cito Gaston (Blue Jays)
  • John Farrell (Blue Jays)
  • Robin Ventura (White Sox)
  • Trey Hillman (Royals)
  • Ned Yost (Royals)
  • Bob Melvin (A’s)
  • Don Wakamatsu (Mariners)
  • Daren Brown (Mariners)
  • Eric Wedge (Mariners)
Thirty four guys have gotten jobs (a few of those were interim, but Ryne would take that at this point) since Sandberg got into managing professional baseball and he’s only interviewed twice.
Guys like Matheny, Ventura and Hinch had never managed anywhere, at any level and they got jobs.  Retreads like Riggleman and even Ned Yost got jobs instead of him.
Fredi Gonzalez, Manny Acta and Riggleman got two jobs a piece!  McKeon came back to manage the Marlins, making him the only manager in history who had a Do Not Resuscitate order on file.
It’s almost enough to make me feel sorry for the guy.
Sandberg’s problem is that there’s no set criteria for becoming a manager.  He’s had winning teams at every level.  But winning in the minor leagues doesn’t really tell the story.  Stan Wasiack won 2,530 games over 36 seasons in the minors and he never got a big league job.  You know who else won a lot of games as a minor league manager?  Mike Quade.  How’d that translate?  Sure, Quade had a shitty team to manage last year, but it wasn’t so much how they did as how he managed them that got him fired.
So Sandberg just plugs away.  I do admire him for that.  And when you look at the list of bums who have gotten big league jobs the last five years you have to figure that eventually it’ll just be his turn.
But another offseason has passed and he barely got a sniff.  It’s time for the idiot hordes who act like passing on him is proof that the Cubs don’t know a hot commodity when they see it. This commodity is so hot that it’s more likely that his last big league manager will get a FIFTH shot at being a manager before he gets his first.  And that guy literally quit his last job.
Sandberg fever.
Catch it.
And die.

9 Comments

  1. Jim Essian
    Jim Essian on November 22, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    WTF, Dolan???

  2. Confucius Jackson
    Confucius Jackson on November 22, 2011 at 12:36 pm

    If he had previously had the balls to punch out Raffy Palmeiro instead of whining to the front office and insisting that steroid boy and Tampa bench coach Dave Martinez both be traded because Ryno couldn’t keep his wife standing up, the Cubs would have won a WS and Ryno wouldn’t feel the need to prove his manhood and baseball credentials by wanting to sit around and watch John Grabow pitch.

  3. lexkase@gmail.com
    lexkase@gmail.com on November 22, 2011 at 4:48 pm

    Wow. Have to admit, being a big Cubs and Bears fan, it hurt when my jokes were being crucified by you and your readers. But now that I see the scope of vast amount of useless information you spew, it is clear you have nothing but time on your dork hands.

    And yet you still poop all over the teams you claim to be fans of. You and your “readers” Andy are such heart-breaking pathetic losers it is truly an honor to be disliked by you humorless, bitter virgins.

    Andy, tell the truth. Have you ever played a sport in your life? Why the Cubs and not “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” like your fellow nerd losers obsess over? Have you ever touched a woman?

  4. Swaz46
    Swaz46 on November 22, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    So let me get this straight, Lexkase:
    If Andy’s never played a particular sport, that somehow disqualifies him from commenting on it? Let me ask you this: have YOU ever published a shittu Cubs blog that’s mainly videos lifted from other places? Because, by your logic, if you haven’t, then you have no right to comment here.

  5. Swaz46
    Swaz46 on November 22, 2011 at 5:53 pm

    That should say “shitty” Cubs blog.

  6. Mike D.
    Mike D. on November 22, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    @ Confucius Jackson– while the stories about Palmeiro and Martinez have certainly gotten around, that’s the first i heard about Sandberg complaining about it and I doubt it’s veracity. Frankly, I find it more believable that Sandberg *didn’t* know what was going on, and when word got back to Frey what was happening he protected Sandberg by not telling him, but also by getting rid of those two. Surely if Sandberg knew those guys were schlepping his wife, he’d have just divorced her ass right there and not go crying to his employer, right?

  7. Frank
    Frank on November 24, 2011 at 11:17 pm

    Andy has had an ax to grind against Sandberg for years. It’s entirely possible that Ryne never gets a Big League gig. There are only so many jobs available. The people that do the hiring often make questionable decisions. And it always helps to be buddies with the guys making those decisions. That last bit explains Quade.

    Everybody thought Jose Oquendo would get the Cards job. He’d been a coach in the organization for years and had a terrific reputation as a teacher. He got bypassed for Mike Methany. Joey Cora has been touted for years as having a future as a Big League skipper. Not only did he not get considered for the Sox job, but he got fired before he could manage a game in place of Ozzie Guillen. I guess he must have pissed in Kenny Williams’ Corn Flakes one morning.

    The Cubs are supposed to be a new age team that is going to value at bats, work counts and get lots of walks. They retained a hitting coach who doesn’t teach that method. They hired a manager who didn’t hit that way as a Big Leaguer. And as the hitting coach in Milwaukee, it doesn’t appear that he taught patience as the Brewers were 3rd in batting average, yet fell to 5th in On Base Percentage. The decisions to hire Sveum and retain Jaramillo seem contradictory to the new Cubs’ way, but maybe they’ll work out in the end.

  8. Asshole
    Asshole on November 30, 2011 at 5:06 pm

    First.
    @Frank – Take your Sux, Oquendo, Cora, Guillen, Williams and shove them all up your frickin A-SSSSS. Go find a blog that cares what your pukes do or don’t do. I don’t need to hear your idiotic opinion. You’re a Black Sux fan. That’s all I need to know about you.

    Second.
    Andy, hate for the Bayou midgets I can understand. We all want a better team on the field.
    But just like Quade deserved a shot to see what he can or can’t do, so does Sandberg.
    Whoring wives aside, he was and still is a smart player/manager/guy, with a real passion for the game and the Cubs. Which is a hellovalot more than Piniella ever showed here.
    I’m not engorged either way. I’m not banging on the table that the Cubs have to hire Ryne because of the time spent as a Cub or the HOF. Dale Sveum is an odd choice to me but I don’t have all the information of why they hired him and I’ll give Theo the benefit of the doubt. However, I do believe that Sandberg deserves a managerial shot. I for one want to see what he can do.

  9. Frank
    Frank on December 2, 2011 at 10:20 am

    I guess Stewie’s Real Dad gave himself a more appropriate moniker and showed up over here.