Raging quote machine Dale Sveum puts in work. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

The Rundown: 10 Great Cubs Managerial Quotes, Syndergaard Opts for Tommy John, MLB Further Delays Start of Season

Photo of Michael Canter Michael CanterMarch 25, 2020

“I can remember a sports writer asking me for a quote and I didn’t know what a quote was.  I thought it was some kind of soft drink.” – Joe DiMaggio

In the history of their franchise, the Cubs have had a number of high profile managers, many of them with personality quirks that made them virtual quote machines. Without much baseball news to report, I thought I’d pick out some of my all-time favorite Chicago managerial quotes and share them with you. Please spare me your wrath for including the wisdom of former Cubs manager Tom Trebelhorn.

  1. “The last time the Cubs won the World Series was 1908. The last time they were in one was 1945.  Hey, any team can have a bad century.” – Trebelhorn
  2. “I never questioned the integrity of an umpire. Their eyesight? Yes.” – Leo Durocher
  3. “We got all these so-called fuckin’ fans that come out here and say they’re Cub fans, that are supposed to be behind you, rippin’ every fuckin’ thing you do. Eighty-five percent of the fuckin’ world’s working. The other 15 come out here.” – Lee Elia (full 1983 Elia rant right here)
  4. “[Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer, and I) kind of sat behind the Cousin Eddie. That’s our RV, the Cousin Eddie, a 43-foot Winnebago, and we sat back there and pretty much just talked philosophy about how this is all going to work. For me, that was the most important thing. That’s what I needed to know, that we were philosophically aligned.” – Joe Maddon
  5. “It’s a little bone that doesn’t mean anything (the hamate bone), that you don’t need, and won’t cost you eight weeks of not playing.” – Dale Sveum
  6. “One of [Bill] Veeck’s first projects was organizing a little musical group that played concerts before each game. Bill’s instrument was a big whistle with holes in it and a plunger to control the air. Rudie [Schaffer] played a home-made bass fiddle, consisting of a five-gallon paint can and a broomstick with a cord on it, which produced a thumping noise. George Blaeholder, a veteran pitcher who has been credited with introducing the now popular slider, played the accordion, and I chimed in with my banjo.” – Charlie Grimm
  7. “The weather’s cold. My club’s bad. My knee hurts and I can’t putt no more. My wife is nagging me. Other than that everything’s fine.” – Don Zimmer
  8. “You can tell your uncle stuff that you can’t tell your dad. That is kind of the role of the uncle. I feel very much like a father sometimes, but sometimes I feel like a teammate.” – Dusty Baker
  9. “As far as sleeping goes, you’re up and ready to go at six in the morning. Spring training was always a combination of relaxing and working, and I missed that quite a bit. I missed being around the ball field. A baseball. A bat. The smell of the uniform, you might say. Talking baseball. Seeing opponents as well as the Cubs.” – Lou Boudreau
  10. “People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball. I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.” – Rogers Hornsby

Cubs News & Notes

Odds & Sods

You have just four days left to get this really boss t-shirt!

MLB News & Notes

Mets starter Noah Syndergaard needs Tommy John surgery and will miss the entire 2020 season. An optimistic timeline for his return would be next April and a conservative estimate is probably 15 months out, something like just after the 2021 All-Star break.

MLB has delayed Opening Day until mid-May at the earliest.

Giants outfielder Hunter Pence doesn’t think a shortened season should diminish the impact of its champion.

Lawyers representing the Astros answered a man who is suing the organization for $1 million for illegally stealing signs in 2017: “A ticket holder has only the right to enter a venue and to have a seat for the ticketed game, and cannot complain afterwards that the game should have been played differently.”

An unnamed Red Sox minor league player has tested positive for COVID-19.

The White Sox are on the verge of claiming the upper hand in the Chris Sale trade.

Extra Innings

Everybody loves dingers! That said, a ninth-place ranking of the Bryce Harper v. Kyle Schwarber duel in the final round of the 2018 classic is a crime against humanity.

They Said It

  • “I think [Hoerner] is going to be a stud. He’s going to be one. He’s a young guy with a lot of talent and I don’t want to get in the way of him progressing in this game, or getting better.” – Jason Kipnis
  • “(I’m) playing with a guy that’s been in the big leagues almost 10 years, played in the World Series, played second base at the highest level, [Kipnis] has been great to me so far.” – Nico Hoerner

Wednesday Walk Up Song

Bug A Boo by Destiny’s Child

What went wrong? Songs that reference technology can seem dated pretty quickly. Lyrics to this song include “You make me wanna throw my pager out the window”, “Tell MCI to cut the phone calls,” and “Have AOL make my email stop.”

How does it play today? It’s funny, and makes us feel like we’ve all aged incredibly quickly. Songs that reference MySpace make us laugh now. One day we’ll probably laugh at songs that mention Twitter and Facebook, too.

Photo of Michael Canter Michael CanterMarch 25, 2020
Back to top button