A Fan Speaks Out

October 31, 2006

The Spin Game

It’s so nice to see John McDonough taking over the presidency of the Cubs from Andy MacPhail.  Now that we have a real baseball guy in the position, a World Series should soon follow.  Oh – wait – he was the marketing guy and had nothing to do with baseball operations.  MacPhail was the baseball lifer with a family lineage going back generations. 

McDonough did come out though and promise that the organizations goal is to win the World Series.  I’m so glad to hear that.  I thought the goal was to entice 3 million lemmings to converge on Wrigley Field year after year, in part thanks to the great job he did as a marketing man.  Though it’s not too hard to market beautiful Wrigley Field and the neighborhood atmosphere that makes a trek to the park like a visit to the circus.  And the team has played like a bunch of clowns throughout the years. 

In his first move as the president, he elected to keep G.M. Jim Hendry around rather than ejecting the one who was most responsible for the pitiful season the team had.  I’m sure it had nothing to do with money.  MacPhail awarded Hendry with a two year contract extension in April, rewarding him for the wonderful job he did the past two years putting a team together.  I guess the ‘tower” didn’t want to eat the contract.  Initially, Baker was to be awarded shortly after but the combination of injuries and a minor league roster assured his demise.

Now before you think that Hendry is my whipping boy, I do want to give him credit for hiring Lou Piniella.  He was my first and only choice for the managerial position, as was Baker in 2003.  Hendry is good at hiring managers, it’s what he does after is where the problem lies. 

At the press conference introducing Piniella, he (Piniella) announced that Larry Rothschild would be back as his pitching coach.  He was also quoted in the paper saying that pitching coach is one of the most important positions on his staff.  So why did he hire Rothschild?  Do I hear the name Jim Hendry again?  Rothschild is his boy and when he turned down the pitching coach position with the Tigers last year, (by the way, they would never have been in the World Series with him in the position) he was assured of coming back to the team.  His contract is now tied in with Hendry’s as two years.

This is not Piniella’s choice.  When I e-mailed an acquaintance I know who writes for a major Chicago paper, he said it was bull**** that Piniella hired Rothschild.  He said it was a done deal and that he couldn’t believe that the two people most responsible for the debacle that was the Cubs in 2006 are both back with the team. 

Rothschild is escaping the blame for the injuries to the staff, the failure of anyone to get better under him, and for the team leading the league in walks.  When Greg Maddux was with the team, you constantly heard quotes from pitchers of how he helped them and showed them how to throw a pitch.  They commented it was like having a pitching coach on the team.  Unfortunately with Rothschild back and Maddux gone, they don’t have a pitching coach now.  The next quote from a pitcher stating how Rothschild helped him will be the first. 

Rothschild is like a cockroach.  He’s survived three managers in Don Baylor, Bruce Kimm, and Dusty Baker, who also inherited him.  Piniella will be the latest he takes down.

Piniella also added Mike Quade as his third base coach.  He managed the Triple a franchise and was granted an interview with Jim Hendry for the Cubs managerial job.  It was said the interview was with the idea that he would possibly be a coaching candidate.

I thought the manager got to pick his staff.  I thought Lou Piniella was a high-powered manager.  Quade wasn’t his pick and neither was Rothschild.  Jim Hendry hired the guy I wanted and emasculated him at the same time.  Why is he letting Hendry decide who’s on his staff? 

Did he just take the job for the money and because the Yankee position wasn’t available?  Just this summer, he was quoted on the radio in Chicago as saying he was 62 years old and wasn’t going anywhere to manage a rebuilding effort.  If he thinks a team that needs a minimum of four or five position players, three or four starting pitchers, a closer, and a completely overhauled bench is ready to compete for a championship, maybe he’s lost his marbles.

The Cubs are a managerial graveyard.  Nobody fired by the Cubs in the last thirty years has ever managed for another team.  Dusty Baker will probably break that trend one day, but when I talked to him a few weeks ago, he mentioned that nobody had contacted him about a job.  He said that maybe teams thought he had an asking price that was too high without inquiring what his price was.  He let me know that when he came to the Cubs he was in a position of power coming from a World Series team while he’s not quite in the same position now and might be willing to settle for less. 

He also let me know that some of the things he did managing the team was because of frustration with the situation and being the whipping boy for everything that went wrong.  He took the blame but didn’t think he was the only one who should be castigated for all of the Cubs woes. 

The all-important off-season will go a long way in determining the success of this franchise this year and in the future.   With the group in charge, there’s no reason to think Chicago is going to be having a parade for the Cubs anytime soon. 

A marketing man like McDonough was the perfect hire for the organization, because someone who can spin some hope is what a hopeless franchise needed. 

SportzNutz Columnist Darrell Horwitz isn’t shy when it comes to “A Fan Speaking Out”… he holds nothing back and tells it like it is, from a fan’s perspective.  A Chicago native, Darrell is a lifelong Cubs and Bulls fan. Along with his “A Fan Speaks Out” column, Darrell is the fan writer for the Chicago Cubs, here on SportzNutz.  If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email Darrell at darrell.horwitz@nutzworld.net