Lou Piniella is smarter and luckier than you are. He doesn’t have to watch this crap anymore. Lou’s last game in a Cub uniform will be this afternoon, as he is off to help care for his mother, who has been in poor health. Sadly, thanks to the terrible team he was given, Lou’s managerial career ends with a whimper rather than a bang. Lou whipped a terrible 2007 team into a division winner, he was hilarious and spirited, and he will be missed in Chicago by anyone with half a brain. God speed, Lou. I suspect the Yankees will snap you up in a New York minute.
Now, we have business to do. The “Hire Jim Essian” campaign begins…
I hope the Yankees do, he deserves better then ending his career like this. At least Atlanta is trying for Bobby Cox.
++ God Bless and Godspeed to Lou Pinella. He’s right…family does come first.
+ Three World Series rings as a player, one as a manager. Not bad. I’ll let more knowledgable people debate his place in the Hall of Fame.
?? Will Lou really want to manage again? At 68? After 11 years of the (Devil) Rays and the Cubs?
>:-( Sweet Lou’s last game…37k in attendance…Atlanta 16, Cubs 5. What a bunch of sorry bastards.
My bad, he only managed three years with the Rays. But still, seven years of epic fail baseball would be too much for anybody.
We will miss the Piniella we had from 2007 through 2009. I think that with all the problems he had at home as well as the dismantling of his team proved to be too much for him. In 2007 and 2008 he had a challenge, and it brought out the best in him. He also had a bigger say in team personnel. If the Cubs can download their big contracts, the 2111 team will be like a AAA team, and Lou is an MLB manager. Faced with the loss of his favorite players just makes the decision that much easier.
@Edelwei? –
Plus, there is a strong possibility he would miss even more time with his mother taking a turn for the worse. There is very little reason for him to manage this half-ass team for the remainder of the season. I for one, found him much more likable than Dusty, and he was a better manager. Time to press the reset button on the Cubs, and maybe if they do things right, we can be looking a decent team in a few years.
Good post.
I’m happy for Lou….he’s done with this PATHETIC Cubs organization. He wasn’t perfect (who is) but he was a big upgrade over the toothpick chomping idiot.
I don’t think the Cubs can win as long as Hendry is involved, what a lousy GM. Too bad Lou didn’t punch that stinking bum in the throat on his way out the door. Ricketts to date is a huge disappointment…Hendry has done enough damage…send him packing. Same for Rothschild….barf.
Andy’s latest post at Desipio says all that needs to be said on this subject.
@genrebuster –
I really can’t name one thing the Ricketts family has done wrong with the Cubs, please explain.
@Chris P –
You mean other than jacking ticket and concession prices, spending more money on new troughs for the men’s rooms than they spent on new players for this season, extending Crane Kenney for 5 more years, apparently allowing Hendry to keep his job, etc., etc.
You heard it here first, and you can choose to believe it or not, but I have it on good authority that Lou deliberately avoided kicking dirt at umpires recently in order to keep his shoes clean so he’d look good in his last press conference. He was asked to do this by Ricketts and Hendry. This is why Theriot kept getting written into the one-spot, and why Zambrano got mad at all his teammates. Now Fukudome is going to step down (and move to Japan to save face), as are Ramirez , Soriano, and Z. I dont know what players are being told now, and it wont come out until they are gone, but winning is not the most important goal now; retiring to be with your mothers is.
@ Frank S – Thank You for saving me from typing more.
@ Chris P – You’re kidding, right? If not, please reference Frank S’ post.
@FrankS –
The Rickets need to make money off the Cubs wherever they can, ticket prices, beer, food, toyota signs, etc… are needed becuz of the horrbile contracts given to the players, and his investment into the franchise is losing him $$$
The Krane Kenny thing is bad. But, I am guessing Hendry is on a REALLY short leash. I say judge the Rickets handeling of the Cubs a few years from now, they basically had NOTHING to do with the existing players and contracts. Let’s see what they do in their 1st legit offseason. I for one would LOVE even more upgrades in the bathrooms…actually I would love it if they just tore wrigley down (keep the field, ivy walls) but give us a modern ballpark. Then they could build some of those expensive suites that generate a ton of income.
@Chris P- So, you are “guessing Hendry is on a really short leash”…and that is a good thing, I take it? Please explain.
@Noble White – +5,000,000. Post of the month.
@genrebuster – @genrebuster – Although Hendry made some fantastic moves in both free agency and in the trade market in the past, during the Lou years he has been almost the complete opposite. So, unless Hendry can regain his old form during this off-season, I highly doubt the new Cubs ownership will sign him to another contract or extend his current contract. IF he even makes into this off-season as the Cubs GM!
If Hendry finds a way to economically dump Zambrano, Fukudome, Ramirez, and Soriano, I say resigning Hendry would be a top priority, because having a miracle worker on the Cubs payroll is worth Hendrys weight in gold.
re: Hendry–my own ugly suspicion is that Hendry’s job is safe. He’s a fine example of the kind of specimen you see in every corporate hierarchy–a grubsucking little 3/4 competent toad with a keen survival instinct and the ability to suss out and execute the desires of his superiors just well enough that it is more cost-effective to keep him than to shitcan him. The fact that he executed the Trib Co’s back loaded dog and pony show and then stuck around through regime changes in the aftermath is a testament to his aptitude at tenacious uselessness. Dude is a Vogon.
re Lou: It was a kinghell bummer to watch him go out like that. He seems like a hell of a guy and I’ll miss having him manage the team.
The time to have dumped Z was when he beat the crap out of Michael Barrett. The man has actually pitched fairly well of late so maybe there shouldn’t be such a rush to trade him away. Carlos is such a terrible teammate that DLee turned down two chances to get out of Dodge before finally going to Atlanta. If Z was that bad, I know that I would have taken the first chance to leave town.
Back to the deal about the Rickettses and raising prices and putting up hokey, dorky signs, etc. They overpaid for the team so I am less than impressed with their business acumen. The contracts were all on the books for everyone to see and they should have been able to use that information to drive down the price of the team.
They should have made their purchase with enough reserve cash in order to improve the baseball team. Just about everyone in the Cub blog world figured this year’s team was a .500 outfit at best. That they have spent their time on other matters is a disappointment to me. They pretty much threw this season in the toilet. I believe that the family started the process to purchase the Cubs in 2008 and I think they had plenty of time to learn about the team and be up to speed before this season started. Just how appropriate is that they chose a pithy slogan like “Year One” and then the team sucked.
I wonder if the big horse misses his jockey.