Good Bye Granpda Lou!

Here I am again for the second straight post saying good bye to another Cub...this time Manager Lou Piniella after he announced his sudden retirement today. Arguably, he's been retired since last July when he gave up on a winnable division, but as of August 22, 2010, it is now official...Grandpa Lou is GONE!

There was a lot of irony or coincidences or as Lou called them, Cubby occurrences with today's festivities. Today was the day the Cubs chose to honor Braves manager Bobby Cox who is making his final appearance as a manager here at Wrigley Field (completely official now with the Cubs NOWHERE near the playoff picture). I don't know when the Cubs announced the fact they would honor Cox (is it weird that an opposing team would be honoring him while still managing against them?), but my guess is that it was quite some time ago when the Cubs had not yet been eliminated from the playoffs (actually, they still probably haven't been officially eliminated). Anyway, so the Cubs chose to honor the opposing team manager on a day when their own manager announced his own retirement due to personal reasons related to his mom's health. Many people, myself included were wondering why Lou didn't just stay down in Florida with his sick mother a couple weeks ago when he took some time off to be with her...why want a couple weeks and hang on watching (OK, maybe managing...) this lousy team? The GM is dumping his players left and right and he's "stuck" with all these rookies, so why come back? He had the perfect excuse with the sick mother...stay home and be done with this!

In a bit of pathetic irony, the Cubs lost today's game (I was there unfortunately) 16-5 to the Braves which gives Lou bookend losses to the same team by the same score to start and end his final season as manager. Some similarities between the two games were LONG bombs hit by Braves rookie Jason Heyward although he actually hit two dead into a 15-20 mph wind today. Heyward also had 4 RBIs in both games. One big difference was the Cubs' starting pitching...in the Opener, former #1 starter Carlos Zambrano gave up 8 ER in 1 1/3 innings while today it was primarily the bullpen giving up the runs (although Wells was charged with the first 2 runs as he started the 7th) as the Braves scored 11 runs in the 7th, 8th, and 9th innings. Did Lou really come back to manage a bullpen with guys like Justin Berg, James Russell, Tommy Diamond, and Marcus Mateo? Diamond was the diamond in the rough today only allowing 1 run but at least it was unearned. Berg was the victim of some more HORRIFIC Cubs' defense although somehow all 5 of the runs he gave up were deemed earned. Actually, he was on the mound or responsible for 8 total runs as he inherited bases loaded and allowed all three to score on THE worst defensive play of the season (and that's saying a LOT with this lousy team - more on this later). Mateo finished it off with 2 more runs in the 9th raising his ERA to 11.37. Lou came back to manage these guys?!?

The Braves have seemingly been inspired by knowing this is Bobby Cox' last season as they've pretty much come from nowhere (literally NOBODY picked them to finish higher than 3rd in the NL East) to lead their division right now. I don't think they'll have enough juice to hold onto their current 2 1/2 game lead with the Phillies getting healthy and surging up from behind them. Their big key is their ridiculous 44-17 record at home which leads the entire MLB. The Cubs were in the same boat this year with their manager almost certainly retiring at season's end and look what they've done - today's loss leaves them 21 1/2 games behind the Reds in the NL Central. Want some more irony? How about the fact that the first place Reds are managed by Dusty Baker? The Reds payroll is just a little more than half that of the Cubs. Irony can be so ironic...

Much of the ridiculously large crowd (announced at over 37,000 although take it from someone that was there, NO WAY - lots of no-shows!) seemed to be cheering Lou each time he came out of the dugout to make pitching changes including a fairly surprising double-switch in the 7th. I have to say I was NOT one of the idiots people cheering for Grandpa Lou. WHY would anyone cheer for this guy? His trip to Chicago was a complete and utter failure! I know he said he feels like he raised the bar, but WRONG again Lou...the bar was already raised when you arrived big guy. I know he recently came out and said he didn't really understand what he was getting himself into when he was brought in to manage the Cubs to a World Series win. What did we get instead? We did get a surprise visit to the playoffs in Lou's first year which ended quite unceremoniously with a 3-0 sweep against the D-backs in the first round of the playoffs...not to worry...we weren't even supposed to be in the playoffs in 2007. In 2008, Lou led the Cubs to the best record in the NL with 97 wins..NICE...but another 3-0 sweep ended that season much more abruptly and Lou's managing had a LOT to do with that sweep. How does Fukudome start game 1? How does Ted Lilly (a.k.a. Bulldog for his tenaciousness) NOT get a start in that series? How does Z get a start? Other than what proved to be a total fluke with a no-hitter on 9/14, Z had given up 5, 8, 3, 6, 5, and 9 runs in 6 of his final 8 starts heading into the playoffs...not exactly the run you were hoping for although he kept it "going" by giving up 7 to the Dodgers in game 2. Harden pitched well in LA, but no O finished off the Cubs. The team played very tight - Dempster walked 7 in less than 5 innings in game 1, the 4 errors by the entire infield in game 2, and 0 RBIs by their 3-4 hitters in Lee and Ramirez. Unfortunately, the 97 wins in 2008 was Lou's best "moment" as Cubs manager as he couldn't even helped the Cubs earn a single playoff game win, let alone series win or World Series ring. Lou's record as Cubs manager finished up at 316-292 which is above .500, but we were past that point weren't we? I thought so, but apparently Grandpa Lou didn't.

So now, the dreaded interim manager tag goes to Mike Quade. He has never managed in the bigs before, but he did manage well over 2000 games in the minors including 4 seasons at AAA Iowa. What happened to Alan Trammell? Hendry said he "made a decision in the process moving forward that Alan would not be considered for the managerial job after this year." Yikes! As I have mentioned before, NOBODY else "gets it" and it will take an ex-Cub to get this thing turned around. That leaves just Joe Girardi and Ryne Sandberg as I'm not aware of any other ex-Cub candidates. Bob Brenley won a World Series with the D-backs a few years ago and he would seem to know what he was getting himself into having been the Cubs television broadcaster for the last several years. I like what he has to say on TV and maybe out of any of the other candidates, he might actually "get it" so I'd throw him in there as the #3 candidate. As I've also said before, we've gone the "experienced" route with the last two disappointments...Girardi has some experience including a World Series ring as a manager and 3 more as a player ('96, '98, and '99 Yankees). He won the manager of the year award in 2006 while managing basically an entire minor league Florida Marlins team to a near .500 record and is now in his 3rd year as Yankees manager so he has proven he can coach young kids AND also handle big name, big money guys too...sounds PERFECT as that's just what the Cubs will have next year.

So the hope for me starts with Tom Ricketts firing EVERYONE ($145 million payroll is on pace for 96 losses and STILL nobody has been fired!) including Crane Kenney, Jim Hendry, and ALL the coaches. Then I hope the Yankees hold on to win the toughest division in baseball but fail to win the AL pennant again...then the Yankees don't renew Girardi's contract and the Cubs jump on that opportunity...he brings in Ryno, Mark Grace, and Greg Maddux to help him take this fairly young (all of a sudden!) team to the "promised land". Grace and Sandberg should certainly be able to work with this HORRIBLE defense (do you think Grace could help Colvin become a pretty good 1B?). Do you think Maddux could show Marmol how to throw strikes? What about teaching Samardzija a second or third pitch? What about Zambrano? The Cubs have him for at least 2 more seasons so lets try to make the best of a poor situation and it definitely starts with the coaching and atmosphere in the clubhouse.


What a TOTAL DEBACLE today at the "friendly confines"! Did it get off on the wrong foot by honoring a manager whose team has pretty much tormented the Cubs during his 25 years as Braves manager? Maybe...shouldn't knowing today's game was officially the end of Lou's tenure have made up for that though? If it did, it certainly wasn't obvious...Cubs starter Randy Wells gave up a lead-off HR to Omar Infante who would touch 'em all twice for his 5th and 6th bombs of the season (i.e. not exactly a power hitter folks). Wells was charged with 7 runs, but didn't get a lot of help. His defense was atrocious and the relievers did little to relieve anything as I mentioned above. I haven't seen worse 3B play than Aramis displayed since attending an Iowa Cubs game last summer and watched Bobby Scales look more like a matador than a 3B. Aramis was only issued with 1 error on a terrible throw on an easy DP ball right to him where he stepped on 3rd and threw a one-hopper to Xavier Nady at 1B. Another hard hit ground ball that went right at him was called a hit (nice for Aramis; not so nice for the pitching staff) but helped lead to 4 runs in the 7th for the Braves which broke open a 5-3 game. He also played matador when his old buddy D-Lee hit a ball to his right that he failed to get a glove on for a bases clearing 3-run double (Lee's first RBIs and first "hit" as a Brave). I mentioned above that the Cubs made the worst defensive play of the year in the 7th inning. With the bases loaded, Alex Gonzalez hit a flare to short LF...Cubs rookie 20-year old SS Starlin Castro broke back to the ball immediately while Cubs veteran LF Alfonso Soriano must not have because Castro beat him to the spot but neither player got a glove on the ball...it was a flare so it didn't go far, but Soriano overran the ball so Castro had to retrieve the ball...no communication at all on the infield as Gonzalez was frozen between 1st and 2nd while the runner from 1st rounded 3rd...Castro didn't know what to do with the ball and the hesitation cost the Cubs a run that even the scoreboard operator didn't get for a few minutes...they did get Gonzalez out for the 3rd out of the inning, but the runner from 1st scored before they got the out so that run scored too. So for those of you scoring at home...that's a 3-run single with no error!

So GOOD BYE AND GOOD RIDDANCE GRANDPA LOU! I for one will NOT miss you AT ALL. Enjoy your retirement...now you can wear your 1977 Yankees World Series ring all you want!