Piniella knew 'way back when'
MIAMI -- Even with his team trying to nail down the National League Central, Cubs manager Lou Piniella found himself in an usually expansive and reflective mood Tuesday.
Speaking with reporters before the Cubs-Marlins game, Piniella revealed these gems:
• He told team president John McDonough "way back when," during some tough times early this season, that the Cubs would be in a pennant race in August.
• He gets "tears in my eyes" after victories at Wrigley Field when the song he calls "Go Cubs Win" (actually "Go Cubs Go") is played.
• Even though he "needed to be home" in Tampa Bay, his three years managing the Devil Rays were "a mistake."
• The Cubs job, as he stated from the beginning, will be his last managerial job.
The Cubs entered Tuesday with a record of 83-73, which gave them a 3-game lead over the Milwaukee Brewers NL Central. That's a far cry from the 22-31 record they had on June 2, when the Cubs fell at Wrigley Field to the Atlanta Braves and Piniella kicked dirt on an umpire.
Piniella flatly denied that the dirt-kicking incident had anything to do with the Cubs' turnaround, but even in those dark days he figured better days were coming.
"Myself and my coaches were always confident that sometime in August we'd be in a pennant race," he said. "We always felt that way, and it's proven to be true … I told our president, John McDonough, way back when, that we would be in a pennant race in August. You can ask him."
McDonough corroborated the story.
"He said, 'Don't worry, we're going to get this thing in the right direction,' " McDonough said.
Did McDonough believe Piniella?
"Absolutely, I believed him," McDonough responded.
As an interesting aside, Piniella didn't outright deny that the dirt-kicking incident was premeditated.
"All that did was deflect attention from another situation," he said, perhaps referring to the previous day's fight between pitcher Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett.
So was it premeditated?
"I'm going to get in trouble if I say," he said. "So I'm not going to."
When Piniella came to Chicago last fall, he talked of developing a "Cubbie swagger."
"I see it at times," he said. "It's good to see. We've been playing pretty good baseball for quite a while. It goes to show you the importance of good starts.
"Your confidence is key to a team winning. Confidence, to me, is more important than anything. Obviously, talent coincides."
Piniella entered Tuesday with 1,602 victories as a manager, placing him 15th all time. That's despite three losing seasons in Tampa Bay. But the Devil Rays job may have set the stage for Piniella using many young players with the Cubs.
"It retrospect, it was a mistake," he said. "It was a mistake because, looking back at it, it was going to be difficult to win, the payroll end of it.
"I needed to be home. I learned a lot there. I learned about managing young kids, patience. In this business here, you learn more from losing than you do from winning, and we lost enough over there. I learned a (heck) of a lot."
Piniella freely admitted that his eyes "moisten" when Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs Go" blares after victories. He also expressed a fondness for Chicago.
"The stores, the restaurants, the whole thing, the people there," he said. "Wrigley Field is special. I tell you, it's an exciting play to play a baseball game. It really is. It's fun."