Cubs need to let Lou leave with dignity

The Cubs don't want to fire Lou Piniella.

And he doesn't want to quit.

So maybe there's another way.

Maybe it's time to ask him if he'd like to retire, but with full pay for the rest of his contract, which is up in October.

Semantics? Perhaps.

But it could be a long second half of baseball on the North Side, where the only managerial questions will be about Piniella's replacement.

There's no chance the Cubs would ask him to return next season, and no chance Piniella would say yes even if they did.

So show him the same class he's shown since he got here, find him a graceful exit now, and let him retire with the dignity befitting a great career.

As for his replacement, there is logic to naming Alan Trammell for the rest of the season, or elevating Ryne Sandberg from Iowa (AAA) if the Cubs believe he's really the future.

But to this point they've never given any hint that Sandberg is the future, and they might not want to hand the team to a first-time manager.

Assuming they don't go the retread route, and unless GM Jim Hendry wants to return to his roots and become a field manager again, as he was at Creighton and in the minors with Florida, there appears one obvious choice.

It seems the time is right to give Bob Brenly the team and see what he can do.

The only drawback is the Cubs break up an incredible broadcast tandem in Brenly and Len Kasper, and Cubs fans lose a fabulous color analyst.

At the same time, if the Cubs want an experienced manager, no one knows the club better than Brenly and he's already done the job and won a World Series.

And if he's the guy you want to run your team next year, why not let him run it the rest of this year?

If he hates it he can always return to the booth at the end of the season, but if you know Brenly then you know he's itching for a challenge.

He's great at broadcasting and while easy for him it's not easy watching a bad team from upstairs.

Piniella probably would tell him it's no easier watching it from the dugout stairs.

Yet, it makes a lot of sense to do it soon so Brenly - or whoever the new manager will be - can spend the rest of this year figuring out who still wants to be a Cub.

As for Piniella, he can't be looking forward to seeing Carlos Zambrano in Chicago again, and if that's going to happen in the next week or two, this is the right time for Lou to head home to Florida.

The man has had a great managing career after a terrific playing career.

He has won three Manager of the Year awards and a World Series, while collecting more than 1,800 wins, good for 14th all time.

He's had a great run.

He was the anti-Dusty when he first arrived in Chicago after replacing Baker in the fall of 2006.

Piniella was seriously engaged with his players and his GM, orchestrating move after move until he got the right players on the roster and turned around an ugly start to the 2007 season.

He made the playoffs the first two years here and has suffered the last year-and-a-half as injuries and age have hit the team hard.

Piniella also seems to have aged watching this club while taking a lot of heat for more than a season, something he never expected when he was worshipped during his first two seasons in Chicago after restoring order to what had been total chaos.

Nevertheless, if he were exhausted now from having to watch the Cubs of the last 15 months, no one would blame him.

If he wanted to retire, no one should begrudge him such a wish, and the Cubs ought to grant it, while treating with dignity a man of 44 years in pro baseball.

It's the right thing to do and the right time, before Zambrano comes back and gives the man a heart attack.

• Listen to Barry Rozner from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on the Score's "Hit and Run" show at WSCR 670-AM.