Oprah-geddon: Winfrey To Quit Show In 2011
Daley Blames - Who Else? - The Media For Oprah-geddon
NYT Preps For Chicago Edition
Chicago Gets Googled
Friday Flashback - Old School Oprah
With the Cubs' season rapidly spiraling out of control, all hell broke lose at the formerly "friendly confines," beginning with Friday's matinee.
Unable to beat their opponents of late -- and perhaps too used to beating themselves on the field -- the Cubs began beating on each other instead. Television cameras captured for all to see, a fight between pitcher Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett in the Cubs dugout following a rough inning that saw Z give up five runs -- the last one a result of a Barrett passed ball and throwing error. The two went at it again in the clubhouse moments later, with Barrett ending up in the hospital for stitches to his mouth and a black eye.
With neither player in the game on Saturday things would be tamer, right? Guess again! Perhaps still riled up from the day before, Cubs manager Lou Piniella blew up at third base umpire Mark Wegner after Angel Pagan was thrown out trying to steal third. Piniella kicked dirt and tossed and kicked his hat during his tirade. And did Piniella actually kick Wegner, too?
Saying that he did, Major League Baseball acted quickly by suspending Piniella indefinately. While Piniella has a phone appeal on Monday with MLB executive vice president John McHale Jr., sources say Piniella will remain off the bench for five games. Which is five more games than he gave Zambrano, who took the blame after attacking a teammate.
In light of this weekend's fiascos, Jay Mariotti questions why Lou Piniella is here. At his age and with his legacy, he didn't need the job or the money. Having chosen to give up his broadcasting gig and get back into the dugout, he doesn't seem to be trying too hard to actually manage and coach the team he is being paid to manage. And his actions on Saturday sure make it hard for him to get too tough on his players for their lack of self control and accountability. Once again, the Cubs are a train wreck. Mariotti questions whether Lou can even finish out the season before throwing in the towel.
We here in the Chicagoist sports bureau were unimpressed with the decision to hire Lou Piniella from the get go and said so quite bluntly. Maybe even our less than optimistic prediction was too rosy. Do we really believe that Piniella can make it through two seasons with the Cubs now? As much as we hate to do so, we tend to side with Mariotti on this one.
Even so, Lou may not be the first one to ride off into the late afternoon shadows. Both Zambrano and Barrett are free agents after the season, and Friday's incident certainly didn't help anything for either of them. Neither is having a good season, and their fight clouds their future with the Cubs even further. Barrett might have been gone after the season anyway, but will the Cubs now look to move him before the trading deadline? And could they even do so to Zambrano -- their supposed ace?
Z was on the verge of signing a deal rumored to be around $75 million over five years when the Tribune Co. buyout occurred and new owner Sam Zell announced plans to put the club up for sale. The deal was never finalized, and Zambrano can still become a free agent at the end of the season. But now, between his sub par season and this latest explosive episode, Zambrano's wallet is probably going to suffer big time. While it looked like he was in line to be earning $15 million a year, might he be lucky to get $12 mil now?
Photos via Comcast Sports Net & AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Zambrano is still Zambrano, and he'll still get paid. He'll probably put up decent numbers through the end of the season and end up with a meaty contract. And I don't put any stock in anything Mariotti says.
Well, we should take into account that this very long baseball season has taken quite a toll on the team. Now that the grueling summer months have passed and the ivy is browning and the team is staring down the likely prospect of a 100 loss season, it was only a matter of time before tempers flared. Wait, this happened the beginning of June? Hah, they're doomed.
I bet those billionaire would-be-suitors to be the new Cubs owner will use this as an opportunity to dial the price of the franchise down, even just a notch or two. Damaged goods!
Chicago media are so fickle in their baseball opinions. Wasn't Jay Mariotti among the legions of sportswriters who complained about Dusty Baker's mannequin managerial style? Wasn't he one of the writers saying the Cubs needed someone to fire them up? And didn't the Cubs play a hell of a game yesterday? Maybe Lou's onto something ...
I'll give you something when you say Lou might get fed up before the end of the season, but I think it's way too early to call his tenure here a failure. The season's not even half over, and you're complaining because he hasn't turned 80-someodd years of bad baseball and goat fear into a winning combination. You might have been justified in saying so if the Tribune had spent some of that $300 million on a pitcher or two, but you can't blame Lou if they didn't have sense to fill the one empty spot everybody saw.
Give Lou a chance, and pray he doesn't get fed up with all the naysayers and whiners before he works his magic. It will happen if you let it.
There's no "A" in Indefinitely. Sorry to be a spelling cop. Part of my job.
Love Sweet Lou, but Girardi would have been the man!
Mr. Lipsman acts as if this was the first time Pinella ever did this whole schtick. Remember, Lou was second to the ultimate dirt-kicker: Billy Martin. Pinella did these antics in NY, Seattle, and Cinci (in Tampa it looked like he just wanted to die.)
@Clint: You might have been justified in saying so if the Tribune had spent some of that $300 million on a pitcher or two...
Um, didn't they spend about $100 million on Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis?
@Scott: Actually, I've seen him do this kind of thing all too many times -- especially when at skippering bad teams. That's one of the reasons I knocked the decision to hire him in the first place. Even if it fires up a team for a day or two, ultimately it doesn't really do anything to help a team improve.
At the time, I thought Girardi would be the right choice. I still do. I wonder where the Cubs would be at this point had they made that choice instead...
Benjy: "Um, didn't they spend about $100 million on Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis?"
I said a pitcher or two. Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis don't really count.
:-)
Please don't mention Mariotti at this fine website. He is an embarrassment to Chicago Sports and sportswriters.
The cubs should just become a reality TV show
I heard Vince McMahon may be buying the team
So now I guess those McDonald's commercials will have to feature Barrett and Zambrano pranking each other? What a couple of jags too bad they didn't get into it hard enough to send both of themselves off to palookaville. They're going to have to make a "Naughty Spot" for quiet time in the dugout. Send in the Super Nanny!
I realize that two White Sox players didn't fight each other, but Ozzie did get tossed out of the game yesterday and the team lost 3 of 4 to the mediocre Blue Jays. I realize Benjy enjoys soaking up the Cubs' misery but c'mon...
Say what you will about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of Lou's antics, but all this Girardi love is a little silly. I mean I like the guy as much as anybody else, and I think he'll make a great manager some day, but the reality of matter is that 1) None of the teams he interviewed with wanted him... That doesn't happen for no reason. 2) By and large, this is a team of veterans (Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Floyd, DeRosa, etc.) not kids, and assuming that a mostly untested guy like Girardi would have worked better than a man with a ring (won as Manager) is foolish. A manager is one of the pieces of the larger team, and for this team, Piniella was the right match, period.
I mean come on, how many times do we hear bitching and moaning about the Cubs making feel-good hires and not going for winners? Signing Girardi (as much as I like the guy), would have been just that.
Oh, and this is a fairly respectable site. There's no need to be using filthy words like "Mariotti". Keep it clean, Chicagoist.
Patience, Patience...
Mike, I realize all is not well on the South Side, either. My post was plenty long without addressing the Sox's problems today. But between Ozzie's ejection yesterday and the shakeup in the bullpen today, I will certainly be posting on that, too.
Ive been waiting all season to see Pinella kick some dirt! yes!
wow. WOW. as a cub fan, i gots to say i'm getting fucking tired. TIH-red. why, oh why can't it be easy? i'm convinced i'm living in a real life "major league" where the tribune company is trying to get the most losses while they keep filling the seats at ridiculous prices.
i've seen two games in years. last year. one was free (i was literally given a ticket by some random guys on the street) and the other was free (my friends came into town and bought me a ticket). this hurts me, because i love baseball. i love baseball at wrigley.
i don't know why they didn't hire joe girardi. i so wish that mark cuban buys the team. he may be kind of crazy, but i know he would really care about the team and be personally impassioned about them and about winning.
when i heard yesterday that zambrano got in a fight, i thought ... "that's zambrano." then i heard that he got in a fight with barrett and i kept saying ... "OUR michael barrett?" unfuckingbelieveable. seriously. a real life "major league." maybe they should get uecker in the broadcast booth to round things out.
but Ozzie did get tossed out of the game yesterday and the team lost 3 of 4 to the mediocre Blue Jays. I realize Benjy enjoys soaking up the Cubs' misery but c'mon...
The Sox continuing misery's hardly news compared to two players of the same team pummeling each other.
I think this sort of thing with Barrett and Zambrano happens a lot more than anyone realizes in pro sports but we don't usually see it on camera.
Why no pictures of Cub fans throwing trash on the field? That was another low light for Cubdom this weekend.
Who the hell is really listening to opinions from either Jay Mariotti or Chicagoist when it comes to baseball? Stick to covering the city of Chicago and it's events like you do so well and leave opinions on baseball to people who know the sport better. Not Jay Mariotti, but to people who don't form knee jerk reactions and spout off at a moments notice.
It's a marathon and not a sprint.
Good Reverend: Whenever you have to ask "Who was president?" the last time they won a WS...it's been too long (17 years.) As much as I love Sweet Lou, there were never any parades in Seattle or West-Florida.
Girardi was a huge part of the Yankee's dynasty, not just as a player, but as an assistant coach. I think the teams that passed on him were crazy...and none of them are contenders this year (including the Yankees, who should have hired him as their bench coach.)
Scott: I'd agree with you 100% that Girardi would have been right for the job had Hendry and TribCo decided to make '07 the start of a rebuilding effort, with a big infusion of youngsters around solid vets like Lee and Ramirez. But that's not the team that's out there, and for the group that we've got, Lou is (at least theoretically) better suited to manage them than Girardi.
Like I said above, hiring manager who is very well liked by Cub fans and who is from the area but who is not an experienced winner is a feel-good PR hire (if that's the way Hendry went, we'd be sitting complaining about how the Trib was simply trying to fill the seats by hiring a crowd-pleaser manager). A proven veteran manager like Lou says "we're trying to win now."
And say what you will about Lou, but in watching this season, I just haven't seen very many (really I can't recall any) instances where Lou has made a move that hurt the Cubs' chances to win a game. He's made moves that haven't paid off, but they've generally been decisions that were the right ones at the time... at the very least it's better than the inexplicable double-switches we had grown accustomed to over the past three seasons.
What it comes down to is that this team just isn't playing well, and I'm not ready (yet) to attribute that to Lou. I think this team is a lot better than it's been playing, and that things are about to start to equal out, and they'll get to the winning (but not quite championship winning) record they're capable of.