Only in the Cubbiest of dreams is Girardi interested in returning to Chgo

Joe Girardi is an area guy who reached the baseball glory of the New York Yankees

Seeing the New York Yankees dismiss their field manager of the past 10 seasons makes me wonder how many Chicago Cubs fans wish circumstances were different so that they could pounce on him.

Another 'local boy' who got Yankees glory

There are those Cubs fans who honestly believe that Joe Girardi has long desired the fantasy job of being their team’s manager – that he’d eagerly give up any other job in baseball for the chance to put on the jersey bearing a baby blue bear.

WHAT MAKES IT ridiculous to think that way are two factors; one being that Girardi’s time in professional baseball has come to be associated with the Yankees (as their catcher on championship teams of the 1990s, as a mid-2000s team broadcaster and as their manager since 2008 – with 2009 being a World Series-winning year).

Stops in Peoria, Ill., hometown ...

His ties to Yankees pinstripes make it unlikely that the career baseball guy really had any desire to return to the ballclub that originally signed him, and for which he first played in the early 1990s.

Besides, the Cubs made their move to get a big-name manager some three seasons ago when they managed to acquire Joe Maddon from his long-time post with the Tampa Bay Rays (where he had won an American League pennant).

... and Pittsfield, Mass., ...

All three of those seasons with the Cubs have been the ones that the team’s fans boast have been playoff-bound; and include the 2016 version of the team that won a World Series championship.

MADDON, DESPITE THE fact some people observing baseball think he’s too much of a self-centered egomaniac, has achieved the ultimate goal. He won.

Which is a particularly big deal since it was the Cubs, the team that hadn’t won the ultimate prize for 108 seasons prior to last year.

... before making it to 'big club' in '89

Has that World Series win managed to make Cubbie fans relax enough to enjoy their success? The sad part is that there are those who are now wishing that they could somehow come up with circumstances that could allow them to dump Maddon and replace him with Girardi.

I’ve even read one scenario in which people think Maddon ought to be on probation of sorts, and if he slips up even the slightest during 2018, he could be replaced.

BECAUSE IN THEIR minds, Girardi is so anxious to be a Chicago Cub again that he’ll gladly sit out 2018 and wait for 2019 to come about – where he could be rehired as their manager.

Cubs not likely to dump Maddon

I even heard one person try to put out speculation that the Chicago White Sox could dump their manager, Rick Renteria, so they could replace him with Girardi. Just about every White Sox fan I’ve heard from thinks that’s a stupid idea.

Although it would have its ironies in that Renteria used to be the Chicago Cubs manager who was supposed to oversee the rebuild into a championship team, then got dumped when Maddon became available.

Would the White Sox give Renteria-type treatment to Rick Renteria? Would he get dumped on a second time?

It would be absurd to 'Renteria' Rick for Girardi

PERSONALLY, I’M GLAD such actions are not likely, because I think it would be the perfect vengeance for Renteria if he’s the White Sox manager who oversees a championship ballclub in coming years as part of that team’s rebuild effort.

Girardi not only mgr. fired despite success

Let the Cubbie fans engage in ridiculous managerial mechanizations with their choice of a favorite ball club.

I do realize that Girardi is the Peoria native and Northwestern University graduate (he played Big 10 baseball) who came up through the Cubs minor league system. But he’s also the guy who has moved far beyond his Cubbie origins, and for the better. He may be headed to a job with the Washington Nationals – depending on how cheaply he’s willing to work in baseball.

I don’t know firsthand what Girardi plans to do, or what the Yankees’ motivations were in cutting him loose just days after they came within one game of an American League championship themselves – although Girardi’s dismissal would be in character with Yankees history. This being the ballclub that fired Casey Stengel as manager when his 1960 ballclub lost the World Series to Pittsburgh.

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Chgo v. N.Y., Round 1; 2017 World Series preview, or baseball fluke?

The New York Yankees are making their annual trip to Chicago to play baseball, but it’s not the usual one.

For due to the quirks of interleague play, the Yankees will be headed to the North Side this weekend – taking on the Chicago Cubs in a three-game series beginning Friday.

GOING INTO FRIDAY’S game, both ballclubs are in first place in their respective divisions, which I’m sure will have some people getting all worked up into thinking this weekend is a potential preview of the World Series – Yankees vs. Cubs!!! – and a rematch of 1932 and 1938.

 

Not that any serious baseball fan of the Cubs wants to relive either of those seasons – the Yankees won both years in four-game sweeps. ’32 will forevermore be famed for that home run Babe Ruth hit that he may-or-may-not have called in advance, while the ’38 Yanks of Joe DiMaggio swatted aside the baby blue bears as though they were insignificant.

In short, there’s not a whole lot of history between the two ballclubs – the Chicago/New York baseball battles throughout the years have involved the White Sox; and as it turns out will occur June 26-29 at Guaranteed Rate Field on the South Side.

Historically, the White Sox were the ones that had something of a rivalry with New York and the Yankees (although the coming of modern-era divisions and an emphasis on local rivalries has diminished that), while the Cubs were the ones who engaged in their rivalry with the St. Louis Cardinals for Midwestern supremacy.

A RIVALRY THAT fits in perfectly with the modern-day divisional structure.

Not that any such rivalry would have been possible for the White Sox, since back in the days when St. Louis was a two-team baseball town, even at their low points the Sox could count on being better than the St. Louis Browns of old.

But this week will give us the one-time City Number One versus City Number Two, although there are enough players who’ve done double duty for both ball clubs.

Take the Yankees squad that will take the field at Wrigley. Starting shortstop Starlin Castro was once supposed to be a Cubs star of the future, while Cubs fans still remember the glories of relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman who was acquired in a mid-season 2016 trade from the Yankees, then skedaddled back to New York as a free agent once the season ended.

THEN, THERE’S ALSO Yankees manager Joe Girardi, the pride of Northwestern University who also was once a Cubs catcher and whom some Cubs fans are delusional enough to think fantasizes about the day when he’ll be able to leave New York to once again don a Cubs uniform.

Actually, it makes me wonder if the Yankees are now subject to the Ex-Cub Factor – three or more former Chicago Cubs on the roster is the Kiss of Death to any World Series-bound ballclub.

It even took down the Yankees in 1981 – which had pitcher Rick Reuschel, catcher Barry Foote and outfielders Oscar Gamble and Bobby Murcer. Even though Murcer played the bulk of his ballplaying career as a Yankee, it seems his Cubby stint tainted him in the eyes of the baseball “gods” and that wound up being the year a Dodgers team was finally able to defeat New York.

Of course, there also have been other Yankees who did stints in Cubby blue, including Hall of Fame-quality relief pitcher Rich Gossage, toupee-clad infielder Joe Pepitone (who looked stylish while he played) and even a guy who was a personal favorite ballplayer when I was a kid.

THE LOU PINIELLA who smashed water coolers to ease his temper (and making a game-saving defensive play in that 1978 tie-breaker with the Boston Red Sox) just always seemed out-of-place during that stint he was the Cubs manager.

I’m sure the hard-core fan of Cubdom can rattle off endless lists of people who did double duty for both ballclubs.

All I know is I have my ticket for Friday’s game; the first time since 2004 that I’ve set foot in THAT ballpark. I’ll be watching to see how Cubdom reacts when it is in the presence of a team that has enough on-field achievements to justify a haughty attitude, while wondering myself what the chances are this could be a World Series preview.

And I most likely will be giving the outside world – the part that actually thinks Donald J. Trump makes a credible government official – little thought.

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Illinois’ Ebbets Field not in Brooklyn?

What with the Dodgers playing in St. Louis on Friday and Saturday to start off the final round of the National League playoffs, I was amused by a television report about the Ebbets Field that exists in one of the Illinois municipalities that is part of suburban St. Louis.

For it seems that an upscale residential subdivision in Edwardsville (otherwise known as the home of the urban campus of Southern Illinois University) was named after the one-time stadium where the Dodgers played back in the days when they were from the borough of Brooklyn.

THE DEVELOPER, ACCORDING to KSDK-TV in St. Louis, was such a Dodgers baseball fan that the streets in the subdivision were named after such ball club big-names as Steve Garvey, Tommy Lasorda and Duke Snider.

Of course, most of the baseball fans who actually live there root for the Cardinals and aren’t the least bit sympathetic toward the Dodgers – who haven’t appeared in a World Series since 1988 (the year Kirk Gibson did that funky arm-pumping thing when he hit that game-winning home run off future Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley).

Although I have to confess to having a knee-jerk reaction to the report. It’s too bad that an “Ebbets Field Estates” (the formal name of the subdivision) couldn’t have been built in Brooklyn, rather than Edwardsville.

By that, I’m referring to the Illinois municipality that is part of the St. Louis metropolitan area – not the borough of some 2.5 million people that is the former New York home of the Dodgers. It’s right on the Mississippi River across from St. Louis, but doesn’t get the straight-ahead view of downtown and the Arch like East St. Louis does.

EBBETS FIELD IN Brooklyn. Even if all in Illinois, it has a ring to it that would draw national attention – even though the municipality has barely 600 residents, almost all of whom are African-American (it’s the oldest town incorporated BY black people anywhere in the United States).

Where the name originates

 

I’m sure the Brooklyn officials would have gone along, although I suspect the developers probably wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with the idea.

Brooklyn, as in Illinois, has so little in the way of business that the Wikipedia page for the municipality uses a photograph of the village’s “adult entertainment strip” to illustrate the community.

An entrance to Ill.'s Brooklyn

Ouch!

AND YES, I should confess that the only reason I personally am aware of Brooklyn, Ill.’s existence is that I happened to notice it once while driving by on my way to St. Louis proper. It’s small enough that I guess many people don’t see it if they don’t specifically know to look for it.

All the more reason for an Ebbets Field in Edwardsville – a municipality that claims three one-time major league ballplayers (Lee Wheat, Jason Isringhausen and Mark Little) among its residents throughout the years.

So why I am getting all this worked up over an amusing bit of trivia that has nothing to do with the world of Chicago baseball?

Largely because this is October, and Chicago is so irrelevant to this time of the season when it comes to baseball. The 2005 and 2008 seasons were such aberrations in Chicago baseball history – although seeing both ballclubs blow it in the first round in that latter season seemed predictable).

IF NOT FOR this, we’d have to be obsessing over how delusional those Chicago Cubs fans were who thought seriously that Joe Girardi would ever give up a New York Yankees managerial post to be a part of the Wrigley Field scene!

Will cause disputes for years to come

While also having to be concerned about those Chicago White Sox fans who will get all upset over the sight of Jake Peavy pitching for the Boston Red Sox in their round of playoffs beginning Saturday against the Detroit Tigers – wondering why he could never have stayed healthy enough to pitch like his one-time Cy Young Award-self back when he was with the White Sox.

 

Even if outfielder Avisail Garcia (acquired for Peavy in this season’s big trade) goes on to become a big star for the Sox, it will never fully erase the frustration of Peavy’s performance – which was a large part of why the White Sox’ Ozzie Guillen era ended merely with a winning record, instead of a repeat performance in the World Series.

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Girardi a Cubbie dream; I’d sooner believe Ozzie will be at Wrigley Field

It isn’t a surprise that the Chicago Cubs fired their field manager on Monday. It had been speculated upon that Dale Sveum would not be back with the Cubs in 2014.

Joe Girardi, where he began

And in a sense, a manager whose teams lose 101 and 96 games during the two seasons he was in charge is vulnerable to losing his job. Although these were the Cubs teams that management higher up openly admitted weren’t going to be in contention for anything other than last place in their division of the National League.

SUPPOSEDLY, THE CUBS are putting all their efforts into bolstering a minor league system so that sometime around 2015, it will start producing quality ballplayers for the major league roster.

And perhaps by 2016 or 2017, it could mean winning ball clubs that could actually bring an end to the assorted championship droughts (no National League title since 1945, no World Series championship since 1908) by teams wearing Cubbie-blue.

It’s no secret that I’m skeptical of that time line. I’m not convinced that the influx of talent will be forthcoming. I’m also aware of the fact that draft picks don’t always pay off (which is why I think those White Sox fans who were rooting for a historically awful season in 2013 so as to get a higher round draft pick were being stupid!).

But what really amazes me is the fact that Sveum is being blamed for the awful play of ball clubs that his bosses always admitted were going to be terrible. Particularly since it is stirring up the speculation that Joe Girardi is destined to be the new field manager of the Chicago Cubs.

Girardi as much Yankee lore ...

THAT’S JUST RIDICULOUS. It’s not going to happen. If THAT’S the reason for letting Sveum go, Cubs fans are going to be in for quite a disappointment when Girardi remains in New York – where he has been field manager for the New York Yankees for the past six years.

I realize that Cubs fans see a Peoria native who played Big Ten college baseball for Northwestern, then went on to play 15 seasons in the major leagues – including two stints totaling seven years with the Cubs.

... as Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter

They want to believe he’s the ultimate Cub who’s just dying for the chance to come back to Wrigley Field. I don’t believe it. Not just because Girardi himself told reporter-types Sunday that his Chicago connections aren't as strong as they used to be AND his family has grown to like life in the New York area.

Mainly because I’ve always thought of him primarily as a Yankee (he played four seasons, including a stint as the starting catcher for the 1996 World Series-winning team and also as a significant player paired up with Yankees star Jorge Posada on World Series-winning teams of 1998 and 1999).

Skowron a Boilermaker/Yankee

DURING HIS MANAGERIAL stint as a Yankee (dating back to 2008), he led a World Series-winning team (2009) and also other teams that were contenders – and likely would be in the American League playoff picture this year if not for all the injuries they experienced.

No matter what one thinks of the Yankees, that’s a winning situation he’s in. And most professional baseball people don’t get hung up on any one city – they want to win!



The Red from Argo

I don’t see him giving up his current status until the time comes when the Yankees are ready to let him go. Which likely would make him a manager past his peak – which is what one could argue was a description that fit Gene Michael and Lou Piniella (two Cubs managers who came to Chicago with strong Yankees pedigrees).

They wound up winning nothing during their time in Chicago. I don’t see Girardi wanting to suffer the same fate.

IN A SENSE, I see Joe Girardi as being a modern-day equivalent of ballplayers like Bill Skowron and Ted Kluszewski. The latter was from suburban Summit, while Skowron was from the Northwest Side. Both also attended Big Ten colleges (Purdue for Skowron, Indiana for Kluszewski) before getting into professional baseball.

And both included a stint in Chicago (with the White Sox) amongst their major league careers.

Could Ozzie learn to love Wrigley?

But Skowron was very much a Yankees star, while anyone remembering Kluszewski’s uniform sleeves cut off to accommodate his bulging shoulder muscles remembers the Cincinnati Reds uniform he was wearing at the time.

I see Girardi staying in New York, while someone else winds up being the head guy at Wrigley Field. Ozzie Guillen, anyone??!?

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EXTRA: 2013 truly historic, in a depressing way, for our baseball fans

We can now forget about 1948 and the incredibly awful professional baseball that was played on both sides of Chicago that season.

The reason Robin is still employed in Chicago

For the record books will officially record 2013 as being even worse.

WITH THE CHICAGO White Sox being defeated Friday 6-1 by the Kansas City Royals and the Chicago Cubs going down to a 7-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, the two teams now have 192 losses combined.

The two teams back in 1948 had 191 losses. So with two games remaining for each club, this is now the worst combined record we fans of Chicago baseball have had to be subjected to.

Not that losing is unique to Chicago baseball. Both ball clubs have put versions of themselves throughout the past century-plus of play that were dreadful and disgusting and thoroughly besmirched our city’s reputation with their awful play.

But there usually is something of a split. One ball club is usually a bit better than the other. We don’t get subjected to the combined crud all at once.

ALTHOUGH IN THE case of White Sox fans who went into this season thinking there might be a slight chance their favorite ball club could somehow improve on last season’s performance (they almost won a division title), the disgust level is more intense.

Then again, White Sox fans usually get more disgusted than their Cubs fans counterparts – who this year seem more disgusted with the fact that Old Style-brand beer won’t be sold at the ballpark anymore than the godawful play of the Cubs.

Keep this fact in mind. I’m sure some Cubs fans are going to take some perverse pleasure in the fact that the White Sox have a chance to actually lose 100 games this season (if they lose both Saturday AND Sunday to the Royals).

But despite how badly the White Sox played this year, it wasn’t until a couple of days ago that it became definite that the Cubs would have a better record.

We all feel this way these days

THE CUBS ARE a team that could wind up losing 96 games this year – which stinks just as badly as the Delta House collective grade point average in the film "Animal House."

In fact, just as how the Delta GPA was the lowest in Faber College history (think actor John Vernon’s “Dean Wormer” character in a rant), Chicago baseball’s loss total was the worst in Second City baseball history.

Somehow, I suspect many Chicago baseball fans are going to have the same reaction as Delta pledge Flounder when they recall this season! If they recall it at all – it is officially the worst combined effort in my nearly half-century of life.

Soon to be among unemployed?

So now, we’ll spend this weekend seeing if the White Sox actually hit the 100-loss mark (which would be one game better than the Cubs’ 101-loss record of 2012).

NOT THAT I’M taking much pleasure in that fact. Losing stinks, no matter what form it takes!

There’s also the fate of the management. The White Sox let it be known Friday that manager Robin Ventura will be retained to fulfill the final year of his contract in 2014. It seems that near division title of ’12 balances out the disgust of this season. Next year will determine whether Ventura ever gets a managerial post with another team when the day comes that he is finished with the White Sox.

And as for the Cubs, my gut says that manager Dale Sveum is gone come Monday.

He’ll get the blame for the stink of two Cubs seasons that no one in their right mind should have expected anything from. Except that Cubs fans are delusional enough to think that Joe Girardi would ever contemplate leaving a New York Yankees managerial post to be a part of the Cubs.

TEAMS THAT LOSE 101 and (possibly) 95 games are dreadful. And that may be the ultimate commentary about the 2013 version of the Chicago White Sox and however many games they wind up losing – they played themselves down to Chicago Cubs-level baseball.

Ugh!!?!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Am I alone in thinking that Alexi Ramirez’ lost home run in the sixth inning of Friday night’s loss to Kansas City is somehow symbolic of how disgusting the 2013 season was for the fans at U.S. Cellular Field? I still can’t contemplate the catch Alex Gordon made of that home run, or the sound of White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson having to “take back” his home run call after he had put the run on the board!

Not sure who gets to “championship” level first – Guillen or Ventura

I’m starting to wonder if the Chicago White Sox are determined to make me look like a “genius” when it comes to baseball prognostication.

For I’m the guy who used this very weblog last November to predict that Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen would have a championship-level ballclub before either Chicago team would.

THE CHICAGO CUBS have done their part to make me look like I know what I’m talking about. But it has been the White Sox who threatened to make me look bad.

For while the Marlins are in last place in their division, and there is speculation in Miami that Guillen could lose his job at season’s end because of the dismal performance, the White Sox are in a pennant race.

Sort of!

I don’t know what to make of this ballclub that seems absolutely determined to throw away what could be a playoff-bound team and turn itself into a second-place team that nobody will remember.

AND NO, WHITE Sox fans aren’t like those of the Cubs. Nobody will remember 2012 with the same “aura” that Cubs fans think the 1969 team deserves for collapsing in September to the New York Mets.

This was literally a team that managed to go from a 3-game lead over the Detroit Tigers one week ago Monday to a team that is on the brink of baseball destruction -- they've literally lost their last five ball games.

A 3-game lead with 2 ½ weeks in the regular season to go ought to be safe. It ought to be a case of just running out the clock, so to speak. Just keep playing winning ball.

Which certainly didn’t happen this weekend with the White Sox this weekend in Anaheim, Calif., with the Los Angeles Angels showing why they still deserve to be thought of as contenders in their division while the White Sox have us scratching our heads wondering, “Wha’ happened?”

TWICE THIS SEASON, the Tigers have managed to “catch” the White Sox and tie them, only to have the White Sox suddenly surge back into the lead. Could the third time be “the charm” for Detroit? Or do the White Sox really have what it takes to put Guillen’s spirit in their past?

The only reason Detroit isn’t in first place all by themselves right now is because the Minnesota Twins managed to whomp on the Tigers in the first of two games they played Sunday, then pull off a second victory in extra innings. Thank the almighty for the Twins that the White Sox can claim to have a one-game lead over the Tigers.

My prediction would turn out to be completely wrong if the White Sox win their division this season, while the Marlins lose so badly and Guillen winds up having to take the blame for a dismal season (which really shouldn’t be blamed on him, but will be anyway).

I make that latter comment not because I’m an Ozzie-apologist, but because I comprehend the scattershot approach to baseball often taken by the Marlins’ organization.

THIS IS THE team that employed one-time Chicago Cub catcher Joe Girardi as their manager for a season and he did well enough to be National League manager of the year. Yet he got fired for displeasing owner Jeffrey Loria – the same man who now is looking for someone to blame for the crummy ballclub that likely turned off people from wanting to visit their new stadium.

And as for those who will want to claim that Guillen will be gone because of what he said earlier this season about Fidel Castro, that’s nonsense. A 66-87 won-loss record as of Sunday is more significant than anything else. It’s the old baseball adage proven true – you’re only as smart as your batting average (or earned run average, or winning percentage).

But what about the White Sox and if they manage to fall short this season?

One-time third baseman-turned-manager Robin Ventura will be back in 2013 regardless of what happens – although many of the veteran ballplayers likely will be let go as part of a cost-cutting/youth movement.

WHICH COULD COMPLICATE Ventura’s chances of overseeing a winning ballclub in future seasons. This season may well turn out to be Ventura’s best chance of turning his White Sox stint into a winning ballclub.

That makes me wonder if there’s still a chance my 2011 post-season prediction can come true!

For Joe Girardi went on to manage the New York Yankees, who won a World Series title under his leadership in 2009 and remains the head of a perennially-contending ballclub.

Could Guillen wind up going somewhere else and leading that team to a championship before the White Sox can finally get their act together for an entire season – instead of five-sixths of one like they seem to want to do in 2012?

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