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Fennelly: Sweet Lou Avoiding The Curses

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By Martin Fennelly, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 27, 2007

MIAMI - He has mellowed. But in this case, he's as stubborn as a Billy Goat - and the curse it rode in on.

'There are no curses here,' Lou Piniella said.

For the first time in two years, since he left Tropicana Field a seemingly beaten man - beaten 285 times in three seasons - Lou Piniella, looking healthy, happy and wise, returned to Florida to manage a baseball team.

He now calls his three years managing the Devil Rays 'a mistake,' though it should be noted he was well-paid for said mistake, buyout included. But while the Rays are in annual spoiler role, the Chicago Cubs, Lou's new crew, are playing the Marlins in big games, pressure games.

Piniella has cobbled and coaxed, with a single well-placed volcano to ignite a second-half charge. The Cubs, a year after 96 losses and a bad start this season, are trying to hold off the Brewers in the so-so NL Central. And Louis Victor Piniella, 64, is back in first place in the last week of a baseball season.

'But you know, I never really changed,' he said. 'I'm the same now as when I was in Tampa, I'm no different a manager, no better. The players are just playing. We've just got something going here.

'Now we need to finish this thing off.'

One Last Stab

Which brings us to the enemy.

It's 99 years strong.

These are the Cubs.

This is Sweet Lou vs. The Killer Bees - Billy Goat, Black Cat and Bartman.

'There are no curses,' Piniella insisted.

He got up off the canvas and a year in the TV booth for this. He came to a land of rabid fans and $100 million payrolls for one last stab at victory. 'This is my last job,' Piniella said. 'I thought Tampa would be, but this is it.'

The Cubs came to Florida with a three-game lead in the Central. But they lost Tuesday. The Brewers won. The lead was two games. The magic number to clinch remained 4.

'We started out with three mulligans in our pocket, and we hit it out of bounds,' a smiling Piniella said of Tuesday's loss before Wednesday's game. 'And now we're down to two.'

Then the Cubs lost again.

Cubs fans in attendance sucked for air bubbles, Cubs fans like 35-year-old Jason Gilley of Homestead. Gilley's Chicago-born face was painted bright blue with the Cubs emblem in red.

Gilley said he was at Wrigley Field that October night in 2003 when the Cubbies were a few outs from beating these same Marlins to go to their first Series since 1945, with a shot at their first championship since 1908. Then a Marlin lifted a foul pop ...

'I was about 20 rows back from Steve Bartman,' Jason Gilley said.

He smiled.

'But now we have Lou.'

'Lou has been perfect for us,' Cubs GM Jim Hendry said.

Piniella said Wrigley rocked and rattled on the final homestand.

'It's a special place, a fun environment,' Piniella said. 'I get tears in my eyes when they sing 'Go, Cubs, Win' after we win.'

Actually, Cubs fans chant 'Go, Cubs, Go.' Piniella has learned Cubby tradition slowly, with lovable malaprops. This season, he has called curse-casting goat 'The Horse' and the ivy on Wrigley's outfield walls 'ivory.'

But managing he knows.

'I was with him in Cincinnati in '90 when we won the Series, and I've never seen him better,' said Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild, the Rays' first manager.

The first manager to get the Cubs to the World Series gets elected Chicago mayor, pope and wins the Nobel Prize. Lou gets the Baseball Hall of Fame, too. But there's the flip side. Even Cubs fans can't remember a Cubs team blowing this kind of lead the last week of the season.

Imagine if it happened on Lou's watch.

Where are the Rays when he needs them?

Nobody bothered him there.

But all the losing did.

'I needed to be with my family, so I'll always be grateful for the opportunity the Rays gave me,' Piniella said. 'I really thought we could have turned that situation around in three or four years. We won 70 games one year.'

Still, if he had to do it over again ...

'Really, in retrospect, it was a mistake. It was a mistake because looking back, it was difficult to win with the payroll we had.

'... They have some great kids. They have more on the way ... I'd love to see them win.'

Lighting The Fire

Piniella watched the Cubs lose 29 games in the first two months this season. He was written off by some Chicago media, as in:

'Lost Lou is essentially a befuddled near senior citizen who is cruising into his baseball sunset.'

Then it happened.

Many Cubs think the turning point was early June at Wrigley against the Braves. During a blowout loss in the series opener, Cubs ace Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett traded punches in the dugout.

Wrigley was burning.

The very next day (coincidence?) Piniella blew up and out as the Cubs lost their sixth straight for a low-down 22-31 record. He roared from the dugout in Old Lou glory to argue an ump's call. Lou went crazy, earning an ejection and four-game suspension.

'That has nothing to do with our success,' Piniella said. 'All that did was deflect some attention from the Zambrano-Barrett situation.'

But ...

'I think Lou looked at that umpire as us,' Cubs infielder Mark DeRosa said. 'He was trying to say he was tired of losing and that he didn't come out of retirement for this. He put the stamp of his personality on us that day.'

The Cubs are 17 games over .500 since then. Piniella has mixed and matched, a Lou's Lab blend of old and young talent, with him tweaking and tinkering and playing hunches that usually worked.

The Cubs lost Tuesday. It rattled Piniella so badly that before Wednesday's game he laughed at a Tampa writer who trailed him for another day.

'Are you the black cat? We lost last night. Go back to Gruden.'

The Cubs lost badly Wednesday. The pitching and defense failed them. Even Piniella's hunches failed them. He pitched to Marlins slugger Miguel Cabrera with a runner on second in the seventh. Cabrera promptly homered.

But the Brewers lost, too.

The number is 3.

The mulligans?

'We've got one left,' Piniella said, laughing. 'And I'll tell you what, I usually like to keep it on the golf course until the 18th hole, but I'm not so sure now.

'... We'll beat these guys tomorrow and go from there, that's all.'

There are champagne bottles, and a city, begging to pop.

Go, Lou, Go.

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