ShareThisBy LARRY LARUE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
This is his last job, and this time Lou Piniella insists he means it.
He said that in Cincinnati, where he won a World Series, and in Seattle, where he twice got the Mariners to the American League Championship Series. He said it when he arrived in Tampa Bay - and actually thought that might be right when the Devil Rays bought him out of the final year of his contract.
Sitting on a couch at the general managers meetings this week, the new manager of the Chicago Cubs said it again.
"This is my last job," Piniella said. "I'm 63 now. Sitting in the television booth last season, I never once felt I'd rather be in the dugout than in that booth - and I had chances to take a job last season."
Piniella didn't. Near the end of the season, however, he sat down with wife Anita for one of "those" conversations.
"I said, 'If I'm ever going to manage again, I have to do it now,'" Piniella said. "She asked if I wanted to manage again, and I thought about the last three years in Tampa. I just couldn't let it end that way."
In three seasons managing his hometown Devil Rays, Piniella's teams went 200-285.
"I'd worked hard every year in Seattle to try to win 100 games," he said. "In Tampa, it felt like I was working twice as hard to avoid losing 100 games. I learned more patience. I still loved the game - but, God almighty, the losing!
"I couldn't take money to keep losing."
A man who seems to bleed internally after any defeat, Piniella is headed for Chicago, where the Cubs won 66 times last year and lost 96 times.
"During my job interview, they asked about my short-term and long-term goals, and I told them they're exactly the same," Piniella said. "I want to win. The World Series winner came from our division - the National League Central - but the Cardinals only won 83 regular-season games."
Piniella smiled. "That's doable," he said.
The only manager at these meetings, Piniella wasn't here to sightsee. The Chicago front office asked him to drive down the Florida coast for a reason - it wanted him to talk personally to free agents.
"You talk to Lou, he's so passionate about winning, it makes an impression," Cubs GM Jim Hendry said.
Among the players Piniella talked to was pitcher Gil Meche, who worked his first major league game for Piniella.
"We need starting pitching, we need a couple of position players," Piniella said. "And we're going to get them and see what happens."
A manager again for only a month, Piniella has found himself in a spotlight that surprised him. Fans knew and loved him in Seattle. Fans knew him in Tampa and understood his plight.
"Anywhere I go now, any place in the country, Cubs fans tell me to go get 'em," Piniella said, laughing. "I had no idea the Cubs had so many fans in so many places."
This will be Piniella's return to the NL, where he won a World Series, and he insists that as much as he loves offense, the Cubs will be built around pitching and defense.
"You know, once we moved into Safeco Field in Seattle, we tried to build that team like a National League team," Piniella said. "You need your bench more, you need to play great defense and you need to score runs without the home run. In Seattle, we did that. We'll do it in Chicago now."
"I'm healthy, I still have the passion for the game, the desire to win," he said, grinning. "I think I'll know when it's time to move on - although the organization may know first.
"I got to the big leagues late, when I was almost 25, and I've been lucky to be in baseball most of my life since. I've met great people, visited great places, had my successes and my failures. One thing I know, it doesn't go on forever."
A man who has managed teams to 1,519 major wins, Piniella has one goal in Chicago - to win another World Series.
"Another ring? That's what they hired me for. That would be the perfect way to end a career, wouldn't it? I wanted one in Seattle. I never had a chance for one in Tampa. Chicago is hungry for a title. I'm hungry for a title. I've got a three-year contract with a team option for a fourth year," Piniella said. "This is it for me. This is the last challenge, the last job. It'll get all I've got."
