The Future History of Cub Managers, 2010–2013

(Apologies in advance if the readings from my crystal ball prove faulty. It's something about the neighborhood. Even the cable reception is erratic around here.)

 

by Paul Sullivan, Tribune Reporter
2:17 p.m., CDT, May 6, 2010

PITTSBURGH – If you thought that watching his team lose to the perennial doormat Pirates, 9-3, on Wednesday night and plummet into the NL Central basement was the toughest thing Jim Hendry has ever had to do as a baseball man, an hour after the game you were proven wrong.

Hendry informed the assembled media and all of Cub Nation that he was firing his good friend and Cub manager for the past 4+ years and 526 games, Lou Piniella.

"There's no two ways about it. This stinks," said an emotional Hendry, "but after a very disappointing season last year and the awful start we've had this year, we're going to have to take the team in a different direction. Alan Trammell will be taking over the ballclub for the rest of the year, and I know that he and the other coaches are going to do everything humanly possible to turn this thing around.

"There's still time to make this a special season, but the ballplayers have to start doing the things they're capable of. I know that, Alan knows that, and the ballplayers know that."

 

 

By Bryan Hoch/MLB.com
11/08/10 11:10 AM ET

NEW YORK — To the surprise of few, the New York Yankees, still basking in the glow of their second consecutive World Championship, have signed manager Joe Girardi to a new, three-year contract.

The former catcher had been rumored to be a candidate for the Chicago Cubs managerial position, which opened up when the team chose not to retain interim manager Alan Trammell. But Girardi said the Yankees post was the only one he wanted.

"This is where I want to be, for as long as the Yankees will have me," Girardi said.

 

 

by Dave Van Dyck, Tribune Reporter
9:13 p.m., CST, November 16, 2010

Lou Boudreau did it. Jerry Coleman did it. And now Bob Brenly has done it.

The now ex-Cubs announcer will be stepping out of the broadcast booth and stepping back onto the field as the new manager of the Chicago Cubs. Brenly's hiring was announced Tuesday by General Manager Jim Hendry, whose own future with the Cubs has been the source of endless debate for many months in light of the team's failure to win a single post-season game during Lou Piniella's tenure and the Cubs' dismal fifth-place finish in the National League Central this past year.

Brenly, who led the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 92-70 record and a World Series title in just the team's fourth season, is undaunted by the challenge in front of him.

"I've watched these players," said Brenly. "I know these players. There are some champions on this roster. With the personnel moves that I know Jim is planning to make and by readjusting the way this team approaches its job, I have no doubt we're going to get where we want to go."

If the Brenly Plan should run seriously off-course at some point, the 56-year-old Iowa native won't have to look very far over his shoulder to see his presumptive successor: Cubs Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg, fresh off his first season managing the Cubs' Triple-A Iowa club, was named Brenly's bench coach.

"Threatened? Not at all," Brenly responded when asked how he'd feel with an obvious future managerial candidate alongside him. "I feel like the luckiest manager on earth knowing I'll have a guy like Ryne Sandberg on the bench next to me. With his baseball smarts and his experience from having worked with some of these young men up as they came up through the system, he's going to be a tremendous asset to me and to the Chicago Cubs."

 

 

 

By Carrie Muskat/MLB.com
01/07/2013 4:46 PM CT

When he patrolled the Cub infield and stood in the batter's box at Wrigley Field, the thought of managing couldn't have been further from his mind. But on Tuesday afternoon, when the Cubs' newest manager was introduced to the media, it was clear that the job offered him the possibility of satisfaction in ways that all of those thousands of Major League at-bats never could.

"I'm honored, really, really honored. That's all I can say," new Cub skipper Neifi Perez said to the assembled reporters and cameras. "Now I'll turn it over to Jim."

"Jim," of course was Cub GM Jim Hendry, who was left to explain one of the most surprising hirings in the history of an organization that has made more than its share.

"Neifi was always on our radar," Hendry said. "There was a misperception—and to be honest, it was really about you folks in the media—that Ryne (Sandberg) was going to be our guy. Obviously, when Ryno took that job in San Diego, that took him out of the picture here. But regardless, we have always liked Neifi. He has a great baseball mind. And I know that he and his coaches are going to do everything humanly possible to turn this thing around."