EXTRA: Sandberg leaves Phillies, gets replaced by another w/ Chicago ties

I found it ironic to learn of Ryne Sandberg’s resignation Friday as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies.

The long-time Chicago Cubs second baseman who went on to a Hall of Fame career for his play, then working his way up through the Cubs’ minor league managerial ranks before taking a top job with the Phillies got replaced by another Chicagoan.

IT SEEMS THAT Pete Mackanin, a Chicago-born guy, alumnus of Brother Rice High School and also of the University of Illinois at Chicago, will now finish the season for the Phillies.

Not that Mackanin ever played professionally for a Chicago ball club. The Washington Senators, Texas Rangers, Montreal Expos, Philadelphia Phillies and Minnesota Twins were the “big league” uniforms he wore.

Although Mackanin did finish his playing career with the Iowa Cubs back in 1984 (the year they won a division title with Sandberg as the guy who occupied the same position on the major league roster and would have gotten a big-league promotion if Sandberg had suffered some sort of season-ending injury).

It also seems that Mackanin’s own managerial career began with minor league stints with Iowa and the Cubs’ affiliate in Peoria, Ill., before moving on to other, more quality, professional baseball organizations.

DOES THIS MEAN that the Philadelphia Phillies are looking for a touch of Chicago Cubbie-ness in their future leadership? Particularly since Sandberg gave as his reason for quitting now a rumored change in the top leadership, as the Phillies reportedly are considering former Cubs general manager Andy MacPhail for their top spot.

If so, it will be quite a while before they return to the standards of 2007-08 when the Phillies won consecutive National League championships (and beat the Tampa Bay Rays in the ’07 World Series).

 

And too soon before they rival the Cubs for a string of less-than-stellar seasons of play.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: How long will it be before some crackpot Cubs fan suggests that the Cubs hire Sandberg to be their field manager – making up for the fact that the team passed on him several years ago when the position was open.

EXTRA: And people wonder why I’m skeptical in thinking the Chicago Cubs are going to win anything anytime soon

From a baseball business perspective, the demotion of Kris Bryant from the Chicago Cubs to a minor league roster isn’t a surprise.

Despite the fact that he’s having a terrific spring (.425 batting average and nine home runs during March), Bryant was reassigned to minor league camp, and likely will play the bulk of this season with the Iowa Cubs.

CUBS MANAGEMENT HAD been forthright in saying that it didn’t matter how good a spring training Bryant had – he wasn’t going to be with the Cubs when they start the season against the St. Louis Cardinals this weekend.

It’s about the fact that major league rules allow ball clubs to have control over players for six full seasons before they can try to become free agents (which gives them the chance at the big-money contracts they dream of).

By not having their top minor league prospect on the major league team at season’s start, it will mean Bryant’s six-year countdown won’t begin until next year. From a business perspective, the ball clubs view it as essential. Heck, the Chicago White Sox routinely pull such moves so as to delay the amount of time that must pass (two seasons) before a ballplayer can be eligible for salary arbitration.

So the fact that the Major League Baseball Player’s Association is upset and is threatening legal action to force Bryant into the major leagues isn’t going to mean much.

IT’S THE CUBS putting business ahead of the on-field product. Which is something they have done for so many decades that it’s no wonder the team hasn’t won a championship of any kind since, in the words of troubadour Steve Goodman, “the year we dropped the bomb on Japan.”

But this is an era in which we have been hearing countless rhetoric about how talented the Cubs franchise is because of all the top baseball prospects the organization has. The most insufferable of Cubs fans would have you think the team is already of championship caliber.

Maybe Bryant is destined to be the star who leads the team to the championship that eluded Ernie Banks, Ryne Sandberg and Sammy Sosa – to name just a few.

Or maybe he’s the guy who will give Des Moines baseball fans a few kicks because the (alleged) major league-level Cubs are more interested in denying Bryant a financial payday that – if he really is as good a ball player as is claimed – he will get someday.

PERHAPS FROM ANOTHER ball club that he chooses to go to after seeing the Cubs organization for the third-rate outfit they historically have been.

Which could make the big baseball story for 2015 whether or not Jose Abreu (the American League rookie of the year) is capable of having another season resembling his star-studded effort of ’14.

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EXTRA: Ryne a Phillie or a Cubbie?

RYNO: The Phillie-in-training

Ryne Sandberg is a product of the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

He signed out of North Central High School in Spokane, Wash., back in 1978, played with assorted Phillies minor league affiliates and got in his first major league appearances with Philadelphia near the end of the 1981 season (one hit in six at-bats, 13 games played overall).

AND ON FRIDAY, the Philadelphia National League ball club named the 53-year-old Sandberg as their new manager. He gets to finish out the season, which thus far hasn’t been much better than either of the Chicago ball clubs.
 

RYNO: The Cubbie all-star

Sandberg finally gets to achieve his dream of being manager of a major league ball club. It would seem that the Phillies can claim to have promoted one of their own to the top spot – someone who has been with the organization at every level.

If only it weren’t for those couple of decades that Sandberg spent with the Chicago Cubs – both as an infielder whose play was good enough to get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame and as a manager of Cubs minor league affiliates. Maybe we can pretend the “Cubs” never happened! Although acquiring Sandberg as a minor league throw-in to balance out a trade of aging Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa for younger Cubs shortstop Ivan Dejesus was one of the few times the Cubs did something right!

Yes, there are those Cubs fans on Friday who are disgusted that one of their favorite team’s most popular ballplayers is now in charge of another team – and that they’ll have to see him as “the enemy” when the Phillies come to Chicago Aug. 30-Sept. 1.


TRAMMELL & WHITAKER: Ought to be in Hall

PARTICULARLY SINCE SANDBERG made it clear during his time in Chicago he wanted to be manager of the Chicago Cubs, which the new ownership made it clear they wanted no part of.

Could Sandberg really have been any worse than Herman Franks, Jim Essian or Jim Lefebvre in terms of leading the Cubs to dismal won-loss records? Probably not.

But there is one reason that Sandberg probably is better off never having been responsible for the home team lineup card at Wrigley Field. He would have had a lot of losses to his record, and that could have diminished his reputation.


VENTURA: Was '12 or '13 the fluke?

Just think of Alan Trammell, the one-time Detroit Tigers shortstop whom some fans think also belongs in the Hall of Fame (along with his counterpart second baseman Lou Whitaker).

HE LATER GOT a chance to manage the Tigers for three seasons – including that atrocious season in Detroit when the Tigers lost 119 games Which ought to put the trashy seasons we’re seeing this year in Chicago into perspective; one-time White Sox third baseman-turned-manager Robin Ventura isn't anywhere near as awful this season, and was far better last year.

How many Tigers fans can reminisce about Trammell and the ‘80s teams (a World Series victory in ’84 and a division title in ’87) without also remembering the year their team came within a single game of losing more than the 1962 New York Mets?

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Will we get Guillen, Sandberg fighting for a championship before Sox, Cubs?

You have to admit that it would be so “Chicago” if, sometime in the next couple of baseball seasons, the National League championship came down to a playoff fight between the Miami Marlins and the St. Louis Cardinals.

A baseball homecoming?

Because that has the possibility of being a battle between a ballclub led by Ozzie Guillen, going up against one led by Ryne Sandberg.

OF COURSE, THERE are a lot of variables that have to take place for such a scenario to be possible.

For one, the one-time Cubs star and Hall of Famer would have to actually get the job of replacing Tony LaRussa as the Cardinals’ field manager. Which could happen if the Cardinals were to decide to “stick it” to their Midwestern arch-rivals and give him the opportunity the Cubs were never willing to.

For another, we’d have to see some significant improvement from the Marlins – although there are those who think they have some potential young talent, and that Guillen could be capable of giving the team the same kick in the butt that he gave to the White Sox in their World Series-winning season of 2005.

But somehow, I’m not capable of dismissing this scenario. Because I honestly believe that both Guillen and Sandberg will achieve some sort of baseball success before either of the Chicago ball clubs do.

EVEN THOUGH I’D like to think that White Sox manager Robin Ventura is capable of doing something, I can’t help but think this is an organization that seems too eager to believe that Guillen WAS the source of the team’s problems. Personally, I think the fact that the White Sox remained as close as they did until September is something Guillen should be credited for.

Not that it matters much now. He’s gone, and Miami’s baseball faithful will be the ones who benefit from Ozzie’s temperament keeping things interesting when the on-field action gets mediocre.

Robin returns. What about those uniforms



Blaming Ozzie entirely seems as short-sighted as the thinking that caused the Chicago Cubs to keep Mike Quade as manager after last season – instead of realizing that the team needed a serious jolt for 2011.

Sandberg could have been that jolt last year. Now, he’s not going to get a chance this time around because new team boss Theo Epstein probably doesn’t want to have a field manager who overshadows him in public perception.

THAT IS WHY people such as Pete Mackanin (whom I remember from his days as a ballplayer when I was a kid in the 1970s) are getting serious consideration for the Cubs’ field manager slot.

It might be a chance of a lifetime for him, considering that he is a South Side native who went to Brother Rice High School and the University of Illinois before beginning a baseball career that has most recently seen him coaching for the Philadelphia Phillies but also saw him have interim managerial stints with the Pittsburgh Pirates and Cincinnati Reds. It’s just as big a deal as the White Sox picking one of their former stars to run their on-field operations.

I can see why Mackanin would like to have a chance at managing a ball club in his hometown. I’m sure it would be a unique experience for him – one unmatched by any other job he has held in professional baseball.

But the idea that someone like Mackanin (or Milwaukee Brewers batting coach Dale Sveum, another possibility) is that better qualified is too much of a stretch to be taken seriously.

THE CLAIM THAT a new Cubs manager MUST have major league managing or coaching experience strikes me as a cover-up. After all, if a Cubs ballclub were to win something resembling a championship (I’m sure Cubs fans would settle for a National League pennant) with Sandberg in charge, it would wind up being perceived as Ryne’s success – not that of new Cubs team president Theo Epstein.

Not that I expect that National League pennant to come to the Cubs any time soon, nor do I expect an American League championship to be won by the White Sox anytime soon (letting their long-time ace pitcher walk away is NOT a step in the right direction). Chicago has mediocre-to-weak ball clubs that need serious overhaul and will likely take years of time in order for improvements to be made.

Which is why I fully expect we’ll see either Guillen or Sandberg (regardless of which team ultimately winds up giving him a chance to manage) running a ballclub in the World Series before either of our hometown teams make it.

And when that happens, we’ll have the Chicago baseball fans split down the middle in terms of who they’d rather see prevail, because I just can’t envision Cubs fans wanting Ozzie Guillen-run ball clubs winning a second World Series before their team managed to appear in one.

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How far he’s come

I couldn’t get away from the image of Tony LaRussa on Monday. Everywhere I looked, he says he’s retiring from professional baseball.

He doesn’t want to return as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. He figures that after parts of six decades as a player and manager, being able to say he won a World Series is the perfect way for it all to end.

HE MAY WELL be right. Although I’m convinced his “retirement” is about as legitimate as those of Ryne Sandberg or Michael Jordan – although he may well be telling the truth that he won’t be field manager of the Cardinals any more.

But for those people who engage in conspiracy theories that have LaRussa returning to the Chicago White Sox in some sort of front-office role (possibly as some sort of vague-titled adviser to team chairman Jerry Reinsdorf), I can only think of the words of Chico Escuela whenever sports other than beisbol came up.

“I don’t know.”

But what I do know is that watching LaRussa leave on top – with sports reports citing the fact that all he’d need to do is manage a team to 35 more victories (about half the total the Cubs usually win in a single season) and he’d be able to say that his major league managerial record surpassed that of the great New York Giants manager John McGraw – just makes it all the more humorous to me how far down he once was on the baseball totem pole.

THE ULTIMATE FAILURE. A ballplayer whose skills might have been good enough for occasional stints with the Kansas City Athletics and Chicago Cubs, but whose real level of talent was to be a regular for ball clubs like the Denver Bears, the New Orleans Pelicans or the Iowa Oaks (none of which exist any longer).

A career “minor leaguer” who may well have gotten the White Sox managerial job in 1979 (replacing player/manager Don Kessinger) because then-owner Bill Veeck thought he was someone who would do what he was told and wouldn’t get in the way of Veeck’s promotional schemes.

A man who was so anonymous that he once appeared on a late 1970s attempt to reincarnate the “To Tell the Truth” television game show – and nobody had a clue who he was!

I still remember watching that program when it aired – only by pure chance. I had just finished some high school homework and was flipping around the pre-cable TV dial when I stumbled onto the start of the show.

WATCHING ACTOR NIPSEY Russell’s alleged “gotcha” moment, thinking he had caught one of the people in a lie because “they don’t play night games” in Chicago made me laugh – what a buffoon, getting the city’s two ball clubs confused.

And being able to use the Internet to find a video clip of that show made me laugh when listening to LaRussa explain at the end that his law school degree had nothing to do with baseball, but gave him a “cushion” to fall back on in the event he got fired as manager.

Of course, as we all know now, LaRussa never did fall back on practicing law for a living.

He did eventually get fired by the White Sox in 1986 (as all managers eventually do). There are those who will forevermore condemn Ken Harrelson’s one year as team general manager because he was the one who replaced LaRussa (although there are other White Sox fans who will be forevermore grateful that their favorite team got rid of the arrogant bum).

WHICH SET THE stage for him to lead those Oakland Athletics ballclubs that won three straight American League championships (along with the “Earthquake” World Series of 1989), then go on to the St. Louis Cardinals – when he was in charge when Mark McGwire hit all those home runs, then won three National League championships in the past decade.

Along with two World Series titles in 2006 and 2011 – the latter of which he wants to be his “last hurrah” in baseball.

Quite a ways ahead of that day some three decades ago when LaRussa had to answer with a straight face from actress Kitty Carlisle if he was allowed to “spank” ballplayers as a way of disciplining them.

For the record, the LaRussa method of ballplayer discipline was, “You can talk to them. You can take their money.”

IN SHORT, THIS television appearance was one that has repeatedly popped into my head throughout the years – just about every single time that someone went on a diatribe about what a baseball “genius” this LaRussa guy was.

I remember him when he was a nothing just thankful to be sticking around in baseball – rather than actually having to use the knowledge obtained from that law degree.

Then again, this “nothing” was the manager of the first Chicago ballclub that ever finished a regular season in first place and went on to the playoffs. You have to go back to the pre-playoff old days to find Chicago pennant winners – except for Ozzie Guillen and 2005.

So let’s hear it for LaRussa. Now, we can begin the speculation about what does he really mean by “retire.” And will Chicago have a place in his post-managerial baseball career?

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EXTRA: What happens first – Cubs win? Or fans learn to pronounce Quade’s name?

I’m not a Chicago Cubs fan, so I really don’t care who they pick to be their manager.

I can even comprehend the logic in not rushing into hiring as a field manager a guy primarily because he was a popular ballplayer for the Cubs some two decades ago.

BUT I HAVE to say it. I don’t get it, even though a full day has passed for me to analyze what happened.

Mike Quade, who was a member of Lou Piniella’s Cubs coaching staff, gets to take the “interim” off of his title. He gets a two-year contract with an option for a third year. It probably will be dirt-cheap, which strikes me as odd since this was the team that allegedly thought it could pick off the manager of the New York Yankees to come work for them.

The problem I have with this move is that it is the kind of thing that a team does if it honestly believes that all is well, and that only a mere break or two in their favor is what stands between them and a National League championship (last won in 1945).

Keeping Quade around essentially means that nothing significant is going to change with this ballclub. Which means Cubs fans ought to accept it now – the Cubs will NOT be in Heaven in 2011!

WHICH MEANS THE best bet for a World Series in Chicago next season is still on the South Side, where fan favorite manager Ozzie Guillen will make things entertaining while the Chicago White Sox tries to win their division for the fourth time in a 12-season time span.

I honestly believe that a Ryne Sandberg hiring could have brought the same type of juice to the Cubs (I’d argue the difference between the personalities of Guillen and Sandberg is a perfect depiction of the difference between the two organizations) that Guillen gives to the White Sox.

Considering his first-hand knowledge of the team’s minor league system, what talent exists, and what needs the team will have to look elsewhere to fill, could have made Sandberg the kind of guy who would provide a sense of franchisee continuity, while also giving the ball club on the field the swift kick in its baseball pants that it so desperately needs.

Instead, they’re keeping the status quo. Which is so Chicago Cubs-like.

FOR THOSE OF you who are about to snap at me that I’ll feel foolish if the Cubs actually win something under manager Qua-DEE, let me say that I fully expect there to be a better chance of Scott Lee Cohen taking the oath of office as governor than the Cubs winning the pennant next season.

Cohen will do better on 11/02 than the Cubs will do during 2011. And Sandberg likely will follow the lead of another one-time dyed-in-the-wool Cub, Mark Grace, who went to another ball club to become a real champion.

That is just a fact.

  -30-

At the very least, Sandberg return would resurrect ‘80s Chicago baseball memories

Ryne Sandberg, the one-time second baseman for the Chicago Cubs who already is a member of baseball’s Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., received another “honor” on Friday.

He is Manager of the Year for the 2010 season in the Pacific Coast League. That is the top-level minor league where Sandberg has been manager of the Des Moines-based Iowa Cubs, in large part because of the fact that the team remains in contention for a playoff spot this season even though a large number of his ballplayers made the jump from Iowa to Chicago this season.

IT SEEMS SANDBERG, who has spent the past four seasons managing minor league affiliates of the Chicago Cubs, is developing a knack for the job. It is no secret he wants to do the same thing at the major league level some day.

And it also is no secret that Sandberg is one of those ex-Cub ballplayers delusional enough to believe that the Cubs organization itself is somehow special. In short, Sandberg wants the job that opened up when Lou Piniella left the team last month (former coach Mike Quade is the interim, with little chance of keeping the job permanently).

In theory, I can comprehend the hesitancy of the Cubs management to make Sandberg their field manager. They’d like to think they could get someone who has previously had a major league managerial job.

Yet I can’t say any of the names that I have been hearing of former managers who may be willing to come to Chicago would truly be any more impressive than that of Sandberg – who if anything has a unique value to the Cubs organization that they should try to take advantage of.

IT MEANS THAT I don’t think names like Eric Wedge (formerly of the Cleveland Indians, whose highlight was nearly catching the Chicago White Sox in 2005) are really any better. Anybody who thinks that Joe Girardi would give up a job managing the New York Yankees to be the with the Cubs is being delusional. Besides, all that would likely happen if he really DID make such a move would be that his name would go alongside those of Piniella and Gene Michael as Cubs managers with Yankee ties who failed in Chicago.

Although I personally could care less about the Cubs, I must admit to being impressed by the level of dedication Sandberg has shown to trying to learn the organization and gain the “experience” that allegedly is needed to manage a major league baseball club.

Which is why when I see ESPN Chicago reporting stories headlined, No front-runner for Cubs job, I have to wonder who in management has developed such a big ego that they think the baseball world is supposed to come crawling to him.

A part of me says just give Sandberg the post, and start working with him toward trying to rebuild for the future. At least he already has a handle on what potential, if any, exists within the Chicago Cubs minor league system.

HE MAY WIN. He may not. There’s no guarantee that anyone will be able to overcome the Chicago Cubs funk in the next few years. The idea that the Cubs seem to want a guarantee that their next manager WILL win a National League pennant (hasn’t happened since 1945) and a World Series (not since 1908) is absurd.

At the very least, it would be entertaining from a fans perspective, particularly those people who grew up here in the 1980s (I was already off at college by the time Chicago’s teams won their first division titles ever, and have no desire for a ‘70s-style managerial match-up of, say, Jorge Orta and Larry Biittner).

Because we literally would have both of our city’s ballclubs being managed by popular former All Star players (Guillen for the White Sox, Sandberg for the Cubs) from that era.

Considering that Guillen’s White Sox coaching staff has ‘80s stars like Harold Baines and Greg Walker, it makes me wonder the potential for a Cubs coaching staff under Sandberg. Gary Matthews? Keith Moreland? Maybe bring Rick Sutcliffe back into a uniform and away from sports broadcasting. Or maybe Steve Trout needs a job?

AT THE VERY least, it would give those fans of a certain age a lot of chances to reminisce in the event that the current ballclubs turn out to be disappointing on the field.

Perhaps we could even settle, once and for all, that baseball “debate” of Chicago fans from that generation – which team was better?

’83 White Sox, or the ’84 Cubs – both of whom won their divisions, but then got knocked out of the playoffs in ways that make the names Jerry Dybzinski and Leon Durham amount to little more than “Mudd” in our memories.

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316-292, + 1

By leaving now, Lou Piniella gets to ensure that he won’t wind up as just another losing manager of the Chicago Cubs.

As things stand, in his 3 ¾ seasons as the boss on the playing field, his teams managed to win 52 percent of their games. Although the way things are going this season, there was a slight chance (if they had lost 31 of their final 38 games) that the team’s overall record under Piniella would drop below a winning record.

IF ANYONE IS capable of putting together that big a streak to finish a season, it is the Chicago Cubs (although after seeing the White Sox Saturday night blow their first game in extra innings, then give up a lead in the 9th inning of a second game, I wonder about them as well).

So Piniella, the man who played in four World Series with the New York Yankees and managed in one other with the Cincinnati Reds, along with being the manager when the Seattle Mariners reached a point in their history when they were actually a significant franchise, is now on his way back to Florida (he’s a life-long Tampa area resident). Sunday against the Atlanta Braves will be his last game in a Chicago uniform.

Which likely clears the way for one-time star second baseman Ryne Sandberg to take over the team, which I will admit intrigues me because it will place both of Chicago’s major league ballclubs in the hands of their star middle infielders from the 1980s.

Ryno versus Ozzie Guillen. That will be a personafication debate for the future.

FOR NOW, I can’t help but look back at Piniella, whom I must admit was a favorite ballplayer of mine when I was a kid – and whom I got to interview as a reporter-type back in 2000 when his Seattle Mariners knocked the White Sox out of the playoffs that year in three straight games.

A part of me always wondered just how much an association with the Chicago Cubs would wind up besmirching his overall record.

For all those people who thought that Piniella was somehow bringing New York Yankee-like vibes to Wrigley Field, I’d argue that the drag of the Cubs always seems to overcome that. Yankee ties didn’t make Gene Michael (114-124 in 1986-87) a winning Cubs manager, and I know those people who like to think that the reason the Yankees themselves didn’t win the World Series in 1981 was because they had made the mistake of reacquiring outfielder Bobby Murcer from the Cubs.

Even though Murcer always thought of himself as a long-time Yankee who succeeded Mickey Mantle in center field, that trade made him the requisite third ex-Cub on that ’81 ballclub, thereby allowing the “Ex-Cub Factor” to kick in and even take down the mighty Yankees.

AS FAR AS Piniella is concerned, I don’t think he did quite as much damage to his reputation. He did win those two division titles. And he is he first Cubs manager to walk away from the team with a winning record in quite a while.

It will be just another set of circumstances that helped add a few years to what baseball writer George Castle called the “The Million-To-One Team,” the title of his book about the Cubs and what Castle said were the odds any team would have to overcome to be as unsuccessful over such a long period of time as the Cubs have been.

Too many people will remember Piniella’s Yankees playing days (and all those water coolers that got smashed amidst Lou's fiery temper), particularly that moment in the 1978 tie-breaking playoff against the Red Sox when he managed to stop a base hit in the sun by Jerry Remy from becoming more than a harmless single. Had Piniella lost sight of the ball and Remy had managed to get extra bases, there’s a good chance that shortstop Bucky Dent’s monumental home run in that game wouldn’t have meant much of anything.

Others will remember his fiery temperament in Cincinnati and in Seattle, particularly in 2001 when he managed a team to 116 regular season wins (still a record), although that team wound up falling short to the Yankees themselves.

SO HERE IS hoping that Lou enjoys retirement, since I doubt he is going to latch onto any other ballclubs. It seems now that the managers of major league baseball clubs are the guys roughly my own age (Ozzie is 46, Ryne will turn 51 next month) who were ballplayers when I was in college and a young reporter-type person in Chicago, rather than the ones who were ballplayers when I was a kid.

Here also is hoping that Lou’s mother, whom he cited as part of his reason for not finishing out the season, recovers from her illnesses.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: With Sunday’s 16-5 loss to the Atlanta Braves, the Chicago Cubs complete the Lou Piniella era with an overall record of 316-293. Mike Quade begins his managerial stint meant to finish off the season on Monday against the Washington Nationals. The real competition is to see if Quade becomes even less memorable a Cubs manager than Jim Essian (part of 1991).