I am going to divide my 2010 season-in-review thoughts into three parts (as Julius Caesar said about Gaul). The first part has to be Mike Quade. When Lou Piniella left on August 22, and the Cubs named Mike Quade to be the new manager (not just “interim” manager), instead of Alan Trammel (who had run the team while Lou Piniella was gone earlier in the season), a lot of Cubs’ fans were surprised. But now, we are glad he got the job because Mike Quade has given Cubs fans six weeks of fun baseball and a reason to look forward to 2011.
When Lou Piniella left, the Cubs had a .408 winning percentage, which would give you 96 losses over a whole season. But things were worse than that. The Cubs had lost 20 of their last 25 games, and I was seriously beginning to worry that the Cubs were going to lose 100 games for only the third time in team history. The team had no life. They were going through the motions. I know Lou wanted to win, but it wasn’t happening.
But when Mike Quade took over, things changed immediately, as those of us lucky enough to be in Washington that night saw. I don’t know why or how, but the Cubs started playing baseball. I don’t know if it was Mike Quade personally or if any new manager would have made a difference. All I know is that things changed.
The last six weeks have given Cubs fans some real hope for 2011. There is always hope in spring training, but now we will have some legitimate reasons for it. (More about that in part 3.)
But beyond what Mike Quade did this year, I like what I think he can do next year. The Cubs have hired three “celebrity managers” in a row: Don Baylor, Dusty Baker and Lou Piniella. Baker and Piniella were treated as saviors when they came to town. They were the manager Jim Hendry wanted, and they were going to solve all of our problems. (Baker even had to say that his name was “Dusty”, not messiah {or something like that} it was so bad.) And it didn’t work – because it can’t work.
We need to not kid ourselves. A big-name manager is not going to solve the Cubs’ problems. What the Cubs need is a solid manager who knows how to work with all kinds of players and has the patience to get the best of out those players.
Dusty Baker didn’t like rookies. Remember Neifi Perez. He was fine in 2004 (and great on September 27, 1998), but by 2006, he was past his use-by date, except that Dusty kept using him. Lou Piniella, on the other hand, was here to win TODAY, if not yesterday. His lack of patience, because he was not going to be here that long, was a real minus. After Lou left, one of the veterans was quoted as saying something along the lines of “people are finding out it’s not the end of the world if a rookie throws a ball on his first pitch.”*
What the Cubs need is a solid manager, who knows how to deal with the players, all kinds of players. Quade has shown he knows how to do this. They also need a manager who isn’t the story himself, a manager who doesn’t create even more pressures on a team that already has enough. Once again, that’s Mike Quade. Mike is so not the story that some ESPN anchors haven’t even figured out “Quade” has two syllables, not one. And then Cubs need a manager who knows what it is like to play in Chicago. That’s Mike Quade. I hope he gets the job.
-----------
* I can’t find the link for this quote, but I did read it. As for an example of Lou Piniella’s impatience, consider Rich Hill. How could Rich Hill go from starter in the third game of the 2007 playoffs to Iowa by May of 2008? Admittedly, Rich started off the 2008 season by walking more batters than he should have, 18 walks in 19.2 innings, but it was only five starts. And his ERA was only 4.12. But Rich was sent to the minors on May 3, barely a month into the season, because Lou couldn’t wait.
I hope the Cubs make him manager. He has done a great job turning the team around.
Posted by: sue | October 08, 2010 at 06:54 AM