Farewell to Joe Maddon. He’ll Do Fine. Will the @Cubs?

When Joe Maddon was not “re-hired” by the Cubs, the name that popped into my head was Joe McCarthy.  No, not the senator from Wisconsin,¹ but the Hall of Fame manager.  Because Joe McCarthy’s career with the Cubs mirrors that of Joe Maddon’s pretty well.  

Joe McCarthy managed the Cubs for five years, from 1926 to 1930.  The Cubs had winning records every one of those years.  While the Cubs did not get to the postseason four times under Joe McCarthy, like they did with Joe Maddon, back then you didn’t have five out of fifteen teams making the postseason every year.  If you finished first, you played in the World Series.  If you didn’t, you went home.

Also, while the Cubs under Joe McCarthy didn’t win the World Series, they did make the World Series in 1929, winning 98 games and setting a Cubs season attendance record that was not broken for forty years.²

After five good years, though, the Cubs, in 1930, apparently decided “change can still beckon.”  Joe McCarthy resigned with four games left in the 1930 season, knowing that he wasn’t going to be rehired.  And it was a “win-win” – for Joe McCarthy.  He was hired by the Yankees in 1931 and managed them for 15½ years, winning seven World Series.  Interestingly, Joe McCarthy had his own “10 commandments” for baseball.  One of them, number 7, was “Always run them out. You can never tell.”, which sounds a lot like Joe Maddon’s “Respect 90.”

One other comment on Joe Maddon’s leaving.  I heard Jim Frey speak in early 1990 (or perhaps 1989), when he was general manager of the Cubs, after having been manager of Cubs from 1984 to mid-1986.  He was asked why he wanted to be general manager instead of manager.  He said, perhaps jokingly, that a manager is always one seven-game losing streak from being fired.  A general manager, however, is two seven-game losing streaks from being fired.  Joe Maddon had his seven-game (actually nine) losing streak earlier this month.  If the Cubs have another one next year, we will see if Jim Frey was right on general managers, too.
----------
¹ Not the right fielder on UVa’s 2015 College World Series championship team, either.
² The 1929 attendance record was broken on August 28, 1969.  The Cubs beat the Reds 3 to 1 behind a complete game (of course) by Fergie Jenkins.  I was there.

Comments

[Bob Schaumann]

Bring back Ricky

[Pat Allen]

Are you saying you want to get rid of him?

[Bob]

Is that apparent?