Wake-Up Call: Book chronicles Piniella's ride through baseball

The Wake-Up Call greets you each weekday with news, views and a few Tampa Bay area sports offerings to anticipate for the day and night. We encourage suggestions and contributions.

Good morning!

Lou Piniella remains restless and driven. His current task - trying to deliver a World Series championship to the Chicago Cubs for the first time since 1908 - demands that approach.

But as people in Tampa know well, Piniella has displayed those characteristics since his youth.

All of the great Piniella stories and anecdotes are featured in "Sweet Lou, Lou Piniella: A Life in Baseball," a new book (Triumph, $24.95), by Melissa Isaacson of the Chicago Tribune.

The tales might seem familiar to those who have followed Piniella's baseball career for generations, but they are worth re-telling and savoring.

It's all here, including:

• The Tampa influence, buddies such as Carmine Iavarone, Paul Ferlita, Tony Gonzalez and Mondy Flores, weaving the memories of Piniella in his hometown, along with old coaches such as Paul Straub and Sam Bailey, recounting the early Piniella years.

Bailey, the former University of Tampa coach, still laughs about a game in Miami, when Piniella's grandfather slipped a Cuban sandwich through the fence to a famished Lou. Of course, a line drive immediately came his way. Piniella shoved the sandwich in his glove and made the catch (although lettuce and tomatoes went flying).

• The minor-league years, including the influence of a hot-headed manager named Earl Weaver.

• The transition from the Royals to the Yankees, where Piniella really hit his stride as part of the "Bronx Zoo" and displayed an uncanny ability to mix effectively with every faction of that complex, emotionally driven team, from Reggie Jackson to Thurman Munson.

• Piniella, the rookie Yankees manager. How he coped and how he maintained a unique relationship with owner George Steinbrenner. Piniella, it seemed, was one of the few Yankees who ever learned how to speak frankly with Steinbrenner and diffuse any tension.

• The battle with his much-publicized temper. How it fueled his passion, and how it occasionally created problems (along with some endorsement opportunities).

• The 1990 World Series title with the Reds and an entertaining look at the Cincinnati years, including insight into Piniella's much-celebrated clubhouse brawl with reliever Rob Dibble (you still see that one in highlight shows) and why they have been fast friends ever since.

• Why some people feel Piniella was the force that saved baseball in Seattle - plus the glory and heartbreak of 2001, when the Mariners won 116 games, but were denied a trip to the World Series by the Yankees.

• The dashed hopes of coming home to manage the Rays - and how Piniella nearly lost his mind during all the losing.

• And finally, Piniella's arrival with the Cubs. Piniella has continually said Chicago is his last stop. If the Cubs do win it all, Piniella knows it would place an exclamation mark on his Hall of Fame-level career.

After last season's frustrating playoff loss to the Dodgers, Piniella had a phone conversation with WGN's Steve Cochran.

"One of the last things he said before we hung up was, 'You know we're going to get this done,' " Cochran recalled. "It was out of context to what we were talking about, and so I paused and he said, 'You know, win the World Series.' He didn't want me hanging up the phone without knowing it was still ever-present on his mind."

Tampa's baseball legacy has been well-documented. Piniella's accomplishments are at the top of that list.

You are reminded of that through every page of Isaacson's well-reported, very entertaining book. "Sweet Lou" makes for some sweet reading.

Hicks earns Sun Belt honor (again)

For the fifth time this season, Troy University senior sprinter LaMar Hicks (Robinson) earned the Sun Belt Conference's Men's Track Athlete of the Week award. Hicks won two events at the South Alabama Invitational, capturing the 200-meter dash with a season-best time (21.47, just 0.12 seconds off an NCAA qualifying mark) and running a leg of the winning 4x100-meter relay team. Hicks will compete in this weekend's War Eagle Invitational at Auburn University.

Swauger homers for Quad Cities

DH Chris Swauger (Jesuit) hit his first home run for the Class A Quad Cities River Bandits on Wednesday night, but the bigger story was a combined no-hitter by Hector Cardenas and Kevin Thomas in a 3-0 win against Beloit in the first game of a double-header.

Bucs: NFL's toughest schedule?

Sporting News Today says the Bucs have inherited the most difficult 2009 NFL schedule. Albert Breer writes: "Raheem Morris' debut could be unforgiving. The Bucs play all four NFC East teams in the first five weeks and then the Panthers and Patriots before the bye. Oh, and that Week 7 "home" game vs. New England is in London."

Harper makes Polk Hall of Fame

Former Bucs WR Alvin Harper (Frostproof) will be inducted into the Polk County Sports Hall of Fame on June 24 at the Lakeland Center during the Polk County All-Sports Awards.

Harper, a first-round draft pick of the Dallas Cowboys in 1991, played two seasons (1995-96) with the Bucs. He is now offensive coordinator at Howard University.

Other Polk Hall of Fame inductees: Don Bridges, Polk County director of athletics; Dexter Daniels Sr., the two-time U.S. Senior Amateur golf champion who died in 2004; Bruce Scamehorn, voted 2004 senior player of the year by the Florida State Golf Association; and Scott Clark, a four-time Pro Tour freestyle water-skiing champion.

Birthday wishes

Happy birthday to Conchita Martinez, who 20 years ago won the Eckerd Tennis Open in Largo, upsetting Gabriela Sabatini in the final. Martinez later became the first Spanish woman to capture a Wimbledon singles title (1994, defeating Martina Navratilova). Today, Martinez turns 37.

The Answer Man

Here's the answer to Wednesday's trivia question:

Florida State's Leonard Hamilton is the state's other Division I men's basketball coach who formerly was an NBA head coach (along with newly hired Isiah Thomas of Florida International University). Hamilton was 19-63 with the 2000-01 Washington Wizards, but was fired after that season.

Thursday trivia

Here's our daily sports trivia question, featuring a Tampa Bay/Florida spin. Try your luck by commenting below.

Lou Piniella is 14th all-time in victories by a manager (1,706), but fourth on the active lists. Who are the three active managers who have more victories than Piniella?

Check for the answer in Friday's Wake-Up Call.