In what was a bit of a surprise, Chicago Cub manager Lou Pinella announced that he will retire from managing at the end of the 2010 season. Pinella, if I remember correctly, retired once before, after the then-ownership of the Tampa Bay then-“Devil” Rays made no real attempt to build a winning team in Pinella’s home town. But Pinella was soon hired by the Cubs to be their manager, and he had unprecedented success: back-to-back 90+ win seasons. And let there be no contest, Pinella is a winner – three World Series championships as a player and manager. But even he couldn’t get the Cubs to win.
Yesterday, the 66-year-old Pinella said that he’s tired and he wants to spend time with his family although he did not preclude working as a consultant to the Cubs or another team (again, if I remember correctly, he spent 2-3 years with his family between the time he quit Tampa and signed with the Cubs). But even a baseball lifer – 40 years in the bigs - 22 years as a manager, 18 years as a player, has had enough of the Cubs.
What is it about this team? Is the 102 year history without a championship too much to overcome? Are the hopes and expectations of the Cub Nation too much to handle? Admittedly, the Cub job is a prime one. Good baseball men like Dusty Baker, Don Baylor, Don Zimmer, Gene Michael, Leo Durocher and many others have been unable to lead the Cubs to a championship. For most of those years, mismanagement and penny-pinching by the Wrigley Family was to blame. The Tribune Company did just the opposite – they mismanaged the team by spending lots of money, but unwisely. The managers take the blame; general managers get canned (but less frequently); but the ownership’s bad decisions continue.
And another GM got spared at the same time. The Ricketts family that now owns the Cubs, while announcing that Pinella would not return, stated that GM Jim Hendry, the man who overpaid for Alfonso Soriano; who paid a ton of money to nutcase Carlos Zambrano; who signed and then released nutcase Milton Bradley. No, there’s no repercussions to Hendry, who made some good moves to get the Cubs to the 2003 National League Championship Series, has had a long run of bad decisions and losing seasons. The local papers had been thinking that Hendry, whose contract was also expiring at the end of the season, was toast. The time for a clean sweep of the front office was timely and expected. But instead, the Ricketts are going to allow Hendry, who has spent millions of dollars that didn’t pan out or on players who not only can’t win, but are legitimately insane, to keep his job. Not exactly a ringing endorsement that times have changed on the North Side