Right around this time last season, Lou Piniella officially quit as Cubs manager, leaving the team to Mike Quade. This time around, the near certain lame-duck Quade is deferring all his on-field decisions to ESPN analyst and former MLB manager Bobby Valentine, who Sunday criticized the focus of Starlin Castro, leading to the young Cubs shortstop being benched the next day.
“Bobby is very insightful and he can see things from the press box that I can’t see in the dugout, like my players loafing after fly balls, dogging it to first, or eating sunflower seeds while in the field,” said Quade. “Considering that only one or two of my managing decisions this year have actually worked, I’m happy to defer all decision-making to him for the remainder of the season.”
Quade has been watching old tapes of Valentine from when he managed the Rangers and Mets to figure out what he would do in certain game situations. Quade’s first order of business was ordering Groucho Marx glasses and a fake mustache to disguise himself like Valentine did in 1999.
Other orders of business included a double switch with Benny Agbayani and Pat Mahomes for Edgardo Alfonso and Al Leiter and locating late inning defensive replacement and triple-decker sandwich for Mo Vaughn.
By Jeremy Barewin
