New Blood

Let’s face it. Joe Girardi was the overwhelming fan favorite in this year’s manager search because Joe’s one of us. One of us. One of us. One of us.

The line that some of you may remember from the Ramones’ classic “Pinhead” came from Tod Browning’s 1932 film Freaks.

But while Cubbie Nation was chanting “one of us”, how many of us stopped to think that the long list of Freaks who were “one of us” never got “us” anywhere? The drought that Sarge, Gene Clines, and Chris Speier were trying to end as coaches, and Fergie and Billy and Zim and Billy Connors and Lee Elia and many others, is the same drought that every one of them tried and failed to end as Cub players. Building a New Tradition it's not.

So in comes Lou Piniella, responsible for seven of the nine .500+ seasons in the Mariners' 30-year history and Cincinnati's only pennant and title in that same span. Ten division titles as a player or manager and three World Series rings. Could have been more if Randy Johnson could win in a Division Series.

His first choice was Alan Trammell, who ranks 6th in Gold Gloves and 3rd in Silver Sluggers among shortstops. Played in a World Series and won it. Inherited almost as big a mess as Girardi's in Miami and turned it into something that was a couple of free-agent starting pitchers away from a pennant.

He brought up Mike Quade, who spent three years as a base coach in Oakland that all resulted in postseason play. He knows the farm system and its recent graduates, as does new bullpen coach Lester Strode, the Cubs' longtime minor league pitching instructor.

Matt Sinatro is the new first-base coach, one of Piniella's guys from Seattle. I've been hoping Vince Coleman would have gotten that job, but if you can't put a base-stealer there, go for a guy who used to try to throw out base-stealers.

The lone holdover is Larry Rothschild. It's tough to say if it's going to be a good call since Dusty Baker never knew how to handle a pitching staff. Lou and Larry did win a ring with the Reds (Rothschild won another with the Marlins in 1997), and Larry got his part of the job done for the Cubs in 2003 and 2004. But while Rothschild managed to put the Cubs atop the history books in strikeouts, it took a lot of pitches on a lot of young arms to get there, and Carlos Zambrano is the last man standing. With all the young pitching on the bubble Rothschild and Strode might be the sanest move, but the acquisition or reacquisition of a couple of reliable starting pitchers will make all the difference. We'll just have to wait and see.

But for the first time in a long time, the Cubs' coaching staff isn't loaded down with guys who have proven they don't know how to win at Wrigley Field.