The job requirements for managing in Chicago are relatively simple.
All one really needs is a thick skin, a cast-iron stomach and couple of earplugs to drown out the world’s most opinionated fans.
Ozzie Guillen was a blue-collar mastermind while leading the White Sox to a championship in 2005, but now he gets booed with increasing regularity at U.S. Cellular Field. Lou Piniella was a dirt-kicking madman who was said to have lost his clubhouse only two weeks ago. But now Piniella’s tough-love style is being lauded as the perfect antidote to all that ails the Cubs.
And after Ryan Theriot’s suicide squeeze launched the Cubs past the Sox in Game 2 of the City Series, the two managers were once again on opposite ends of the Genius-o-meter.
“Couple of weeks ago, Lou was the worst manager in baseball,” Guillen said Sunday morning. “And all of a sudden he beat the White Sox on a squeeze play in the ninth. Wow, he’s a genius the last two days.
“That’s the way it is. I’m not going to cut up and say, ‘Oh my God, is he over-managing me?’ He always does. I keep saying, when you lose a game, they’re over-managing you. They’re outplaying you. No matter how they beat you, that’s the way it is.”
Piniella doesn’t like being called a genius, though it’s preferable to being called a lunatic.
“I don’t really pay attention to what people say about me one way or another,” Piniella said before Game 3.
“I’ll tell you this: I haven’t won as many games as I have in the big leagues because I’m a dummy.
“Outside of that, the players on the field are the ones who executed. … It’s easy for a manager to put on a play. It’s hard for the player to execute it. I’ve always been aware of that.”
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With the first year of Piniella vs. Guillen in the books, here’s one review of the most memorable moments from Round 2 of the City Series:
Best Sox quote: GM Ken Williams on upcoming changes: “Something’s got to happen. I’m tired of watching this. Slapped in the face, hit upside the head, whatever you want to call it — change needs to happen, and change is going to happen. When that happens, I don’t know. We have to do our due diligence.”
Best performance: Alfonso Soriano homered in all three games and threw a runner out at the plate in the fifth inning of a scoreless game on Sunday.
“In April he didn’t have a home run, and a lot of people were pushing the panic button,” Cubs infielder Mark DeRosa said.
Best debut: Mike Fontenot was 4-for-13 in his first City Series and made a nice play at second base in Game 3.
“I’ve been here for b.p, but the last two times I’ve been sent down on the first day of the White Sox series,” Fontenot said. “So I was happy to make it through it this time.”
Best Cubs quote: DeRosa, one day after sitting out with a sluggish feeling he compared with a “three-day hangover”: “I feel like I’m coherent.”
Worst development: The news that ex-Cubs reliever Rod Beck had died spread through the Cubs clubhouse on Sunday.
“We said a prayer for his family at chapel,” Piniella said. “He was a competitor. I didn’t know him personally, but I always enjoyed watching him pitch and the way he competed and the way he got people out without having a great fastball. He was a character.”
Best Jimbo’s moment: As Sox fans gathered at Jimbo’s to drown their sorrows after the Game 2 loss on Saturday, a couple raised their beers and gave a toast to O’Brien’s and McCuddy’s, the two taverns torn down during the demolition of old Comiskey Park. Then they cursed former Gov. Jim Thompson, who had promised to buy the first round in the “new McCuddy’s,” which was never built.
Most confusing moment: The interference play in the eighth inning of Game 3. Hawk Harrelson was steaming. Ozzie Guillen was screaming. And the crowd of 39,194 wasn’t exactly sure what was going on.
Worst sign of the times: Hundreds of no-shows to Game 2 and 3 suggest either the City Series has lost some of its luster over the last 11 years, or Sox fans are just plain disgusted.