Ryne Sandberg is my favorite Cub of all time.
His breathtaking career went from a nobody throw-in in a Phillies trade to the hardest working, most fundamentally sound, home run hitting, team player-ing, Hall of Faming Cub we'll ever see.
He's the shining example of everything that can be right in baseball.
He's Royalty.
A God.
And that's how I want him to stay, at least for now.
Managing's a different deal.
Ask Lou Piniella the difference between playing for the Yankees and managing the Mariners.
Then ask him about managing the Cubs.
I wasn't wild about Ryno's insistence that his couple years managing in the minors automatically made him eligible to leap-frog above other contenders.
You can be a Hall of Famer, but I learned as a busboy you can "do everything you're supposed to do" to get to the next step and it doesn't always happen.
And I'm happy with Mike Quade getting the nod after managing pretty much since 1985.
There would have been nothing worse than my biggest Cub hero coming to the Bigs as a Cub manager after a couple of the WORST years ever... and failing.
You guys read blogs.
It's brutal out there.
How awful would it be in a couple years to read a couple hundred comments from Cub fans all saying, "Sandberg SUCKS! Get rid of him!"
My heart couldn't take that.
Yeah, you could think the other way: "Ryno comes to the Cubs... they go to the World Series... it's the GREATEST STORY OF ALL TIME."
But we already had our chance at the greatest story, and a far better chance, in 2008 when it would have been the end of the 100 year drought on the even number 100.
I don't believe in that any more, because half of it is based on a hope that's based on an older hope that didn't pan out.
Had Ryno been selected as the next manager, we'd have stepped back into some other weird dimension of fairy tale gobbledygook. Another layer of Cub stuff we just don't need right now.
I'd like an objective look at what I hope is the beginning of a major Cub turnaround, and I'd rather it not be about Ryno or Dawson, Fergie or Santo, or Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Don't get me wrong - I love all that old stuff and I freaking LOVE Ryne Sandberg - but I think it's time to just let the team be the team it is right now.
So good luck, Ryno. I believe it's actually good you get outside the Cubs organization, you'll garner more respect and valuable experience by being around others.
And in the long run you'll be better because of it.
