Will Sandberg Finally Manage The Cubs??

While we're on the Old Cubbies we could get to manage them........

Bob Dernier---1st base coach for Cubs
Leon Durham---hitting coach for Toledo Mudhens
Shawon Duston---Special assistant for San Franciso Giants
Ron Cey---Still involved with Dodgers organization.
Keith Moreland---Color analyst for WGN Radio.
Andre Dawson---Still involved with Marlins organization.

I could actually see someone like Dernier getting a shot.

 

I wonder if it's gotten to the point that it even matters, considering that I'm now hearing lifelong Cubs fans become jaded to the point of seeing the team as irrelevant. Sociologists say the worst thing is not hate rather than love, but indifference.

Harry weeps.

 

Piniella managed them to the third-best record in the AL in '86, which would have put them in the playoffs under the current system, and he did it with a starting rotation that had just one guy in his prime (Dennis Rasmussen). Not bad for a rookie manager.

He won just one less game the next season, although the Yanks dropped to fourth in the AL East. This in spite of having 44-year-old Tommy John as his ace, and trotting out Steve Trout for nine starts.

By '88, the Yanks were washed up, Steinbrenner was overheating the panic button, and he got fired. 11/2 years later, he won the whole thing with Cincinnati.

So yeah, he had more success later on. But who knows how well he would have done had Steinbrenner not gone ballistic every time they lost two straight and given Lou a chance to do his thing without interference.

 

I've watched the Cubs play several times this season (yeah, I was bored). To be perfectly honest, given the dreck that is their roster, Mike Quade hasn't done a half-bad job as manager.

 

Dave Martinez in Tampa.

 

The one thing Leon Durham, Ron Cey, and Ron Santo all had in common?

Nevermind. Cey wore 11, not 10.

 

As long as LaRussa doesn't take his pharmacist with him they'll be fine.

 

Didn't Dave Martinez move in on somebody's wife?

 

Bubbler, I think you hate Cubs fans almost as much as I do.

Sandberg would have been just as likely to lose 100 games as Quade with the steaming pile of shit Hendry gave him to manage so he's probably better off at Triple A anyway.

 

They weren't midget outfielders. They were midget second basemen.

 

Anybody who has paid any attention to the makeup of the Cubs roster could have told you they were going to be terrible this year (and next) due to the backloaded contracts to aging over-the-hill players (Soriano's being the worst offender). The Trib let Hendry open the checkbook in '07 and '08 (with backloaded deals, of course, so someone else would be on the hook for them) to build a quick contender to drive up the team's value for a quick sale.

The Cubs lost 100 games in '06 and then turned around and won back-to-back division titles the next two years. It's not hopeless, but they need to make some major moves this off-season (a new 1B, at least 2 new top-of-the-line SP, a closer who can hold onto a one-run lead, a backup catcher whose name isn't Koyie Hill, and probably a RF). If that's not in the cards, expect another long year and then a spending spree in 2013 when Soriano, Dempster, Ramirez and a bunch of other guys come off the books.

 

Or stop at intersections and fall asleep.