by Lou Piniella
When it was over, all I could feel was a tremendous sense of disappointment. My thought was, Why? The pressure of the contract? Watching Alex’s admission, I was brought back to that phone call I got from Mr. Steinbrenner in August of ’79 informing me that Thurman was dead. Why did Alex have to do this? To prove to everyone he was one of the greatest players of all time? He was already well on his way to proving that in Seattle! The more I thought about it, the more I was mad at Alex for getting involved with that damn stuff, just like I was mad at Thurman for not getting rid of that damn plane.
Alex was in the glory years of his career, both physically and mentally, and all he had to be was himself. There was no reason whatsoever to partake in this foolishness, especially in a smaller hitter’s ballpark like Texas’. I thought we’d taught him better in Seattle. People make mistakes. The huge contract I suppose made him feel like he had to be superhuman when, in fact, you’re always being paid for what you did in the past. At the same time, the steroids culture was more and more prevalent, and neither the commissioner’s office nor the players association had been inclined to do much about it. You had to really stay grounded and disciplined while at the same time being around the right people. We had that for Alex in Seattle, with mentors and role models like Edgar Martinez and Jay Buhner, but when he left us he apparently went astray. He got bad advice.
But as upset as I was at Alex, I also had empathy for him because I knew this stigma was not going to go away. It would haunt and dog him the rest of his career and after it. He was insecure in Seattle and I was aware of that fact. That’s why I would tell him almost every day, in Spanish, “You’re the best player in baseball. I’m so proud of you,” just to buck him up. He needed that encouragement. I wasn’t blowing smoke at him. I meant it. He was raised by his mom, and she did a super job, shielding him from the dangers of everyday life. Alex was such a talented kid, but he was also very naive. I think without a father around it led to a lot of his insecurities, and I guess that’s why he looked to me as a father figure. I can only guess, with the huge contract, he didn’t get that kind of bucking up and reassurance in Texas. He was a super talent who wanted to be recognized that way.
I probably should have picked up the phone, but I’ve never been the best phone person in the world. I really didn’t have a good grasp on the situation, nor did I know exactly the right thing to say to him. I was just deeply saddened.
“We never had any specific conversations about it,” Alex said for this book. “But I knew that Lou would never condone that type of behavior by me and I knew that he would be disappointed in me. I knew I’d let him down. In many ways. I revered Lou, much like a dad. It broke my heart to disappoint him.
“If I had talked to Lou more, I know I probably wouldn’t have made a lot of the mistakes I made. I always knew Lou’s position—to be honest, to be transparent, and to do the right thing. Our conversations since have been a lot more progressive. I have so much love for Lou. I always look at him as a consigliere—if there’s any major decision to make, Lou will be my first phone call. In my tough moments, I always hear Lou’s voice. He was my professor, my teacher, from my formative years. To this day, when I’m on the field I still hear his voice on how to handle a tough day, how you think about the game, how you put things together. All those things I learned from him. I remember early on, he would be on me, making the double plays the proper way, being in the right place, hit-and-runs. If you missed any of those things it would drive him nuts. But for me, the one thing he especially taught me was accountability. Looking back, I wish maybe I could have had a few more years with him. Some things might have turned out differently.”
I didn’t talk to Alex for a long time afterward. Just like with Josh Hamilton and the drugs in Tampa, I really didn’t know what to say to him. Much as the news about Alex upset me, I still had to focus on my own team.
It did not take long into the 2009 season for Jim’s and my concerns about Bradley to be realized. Against the Brewers, on April 12, he came up with a sore groin and I had to limit him to pinch-hitting duties. On April 16, he was called out on strikes in a pinch-hitting appearance and was then ejected—and subsequently suspended for two games—after bumping the home plate umpire, Larry Vanover, in a vociferous argument. At that point, he announced he would not be talking to the media. When I returned him to right field against the Reds, April 22, he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, and on his one groundout, he didn’t run to first base, even though the throw was bobbled by the first baseman. For that, he was booed repeatedly throughout the game, which we lost, 3–0. At that juncture, he was 1-for-23 with seven strikeouts. When the writers asked me after the game about Bradley not running out the ground ball, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, saying I would not be starting him again until he was healthy.
The next day he ended his boycott of the media, insisting he was “a positive person, an upbeat person,” but from then on it seemed that whenever he had any extended sessions with the writers, it was always to complain about the way he was being treated. On May 25, in particular, he made the grievous mistake of suggesting the umpires were out to get him after the Vanover incident: “We’re going to get him any time we can. As soon as he gets two strikes, we’re going to call whatever and see what he does. Let’s try to ruin Milton Bradley.”
He ended April hitting .118 and did not get over .200 until May 27. Just prior to that, an eight-game losing streak had put us one game under .500, in fourth place, and I was becoming more concerned with our overall play than I was with Bradley. On May 8 in Milwaukee, we suffered a devastating loss when Aramis Ramirez tore a muscle in his throwing shoulder and was sidelined until July 6. During his absence, we were 24–26 and were saved from falling out of the race before the All-Star Break only by the subpar play of the Brewers, Cardinals, and Reds ahead of us. Besides Ramirez, Geovany Soto was out for a month in midseason with a shoulder injury, Soriano missed most of September with knee and hamstring issues, Derrek Lee missed 20 games with a back problem, and Bradley missed nearly 40 games. As a result, I was able to use my Opening Day lineup only three times.
My tensions with Bradley boiled over during the Cubs–White Sox interleague game at US Cellular Field on June 26, after he threw a fit in the dugout, throwing his helmet and smashing a Gatorade cooler, causing an eruption of water all over. Not that I hadn’t thrown similar tantrums in my day, but I was just tired of Bradley’s seemingly constant rage and told him to take off his uniform and go home. I should have let him sit there and stew. Instead, I followed him up the runway to the clubhouse and after he gave me some lip, I yelled at him, “You’re the biggest piece of shit I ever managed!” Justifiably mad as I was, that was over the line, especially since it was in earshot of the other players and later leaked out to the press. That night I got a call at home from Peter Chase, the Cubs’ media relations director. “We have a problem,” he said. “The media all know what you said to Bradley and it’s all over the place.”
I told Peter I’d address it in the morning. When I got to the White Sox’s park the next day, I called Bradley into my office, apologized to him, gave him a hug, and said, “I hope you accept this. I said what I said out of anger and frustration.”
It had been building. On June 12, in a game against the Twins, after hitting a two-run double in the sixth, Bradley made a baserunning mistake in the same inning, lost a ball in the sun, and was charged with an error when he caught a ball for the second out in the eighth and threw it to a fan in the bleachers. As I told the writers, “I’ve looked the other way a lot. I’m done with it.”
In addition to my issues with Bradley’s temperament, I was just as disturbed with his performance on the field. By June 25, he’d gotten his batting average up to .237 and finished the season at .257, but he wound up hitting far better from the right side (.373/.830 OPS) than he did from the left (.231/.757 OPS)—which is what we got him for. Offensively he didn’t do the things we were expecting him to do, and defensively he made
a lot of bonehead plays. He had this chip on his shoulder and seldom smiled. He seemed happiest when he didn’t play.
My first two seasons in Chicago, we had great clubhouse chemistry. Mark DeRosa and Kerry Wood were a big part of that. That all changed in 2009. I hate to put it all on one player—the clubhouse is my responsibility—but, boy, it was tough. Carlos Zambrano (who was once again suspended six games without pay and fined $3,000, after bumping a home plate umpire, Mark Carlson, on May 27) was temperamental, too, but he was always fighting himself and didn’t create problems. Bradley’s antics affected the whole team. After a game against the Nationals at Wrigley in August he accused the Cubs fans of being racist, claiming he’d been constantly subjected to racial slurs from the fans in the right field seats, even though our other players maintained they’d seen no evidence of that. “All I’m saying,” he told the writers, “is that I just pray the game is nine innings so I can be out there in the least amount of time.” Yet another firestorm.
The final straw for us was when Bradley pulled himself out of the starting lineup on September 19 against the Cardinals, then refused to pinch-hit later in the game. That prompted my hitting coach, Von Joshua, to get in his face, and they nearly came to blows. After the game, he launched into another angry diatribe about the media, the fans, and the organization: “You understand why they haven’t won in one hundred years here. I need a stable, healthy, enjoyable environment. There’s too many people everywhere in your face with a microphone, asking the same question repeatedly. Everything is just bashing you. It’s just negativity.”
To that, Ryan Dempster responded, “I’ve been here six years and never had a problem with anyone. The city’s great. The fans are great. Sometimes you have to realize the consequences of your actions.”
Those consequences were Hendry suspending Bradley for the rest of the season while stating, “It’s become intolerable to hear Milton talk about our great fans the way he has.”
I fully supported Jim. Bradley wore me out. It was a long damn summer dealing with this every day, and on top of all that, he just didn’t perform. He was an angry, troubled young man. In 2013, he was convicted on a domestic violence charge and sentenced to thirty-three months in jail.
Right before the ’09 All-Star Break, Zell made it official: he’d agreed to sell the Cubs to the Thomas Ricketts family of Chicago investment bankers, for $845 million. For me, that was another unwanted record: three owners in three years. For Hendry, it likely meant a further hold on payroll and an eventual dismantling of what we’d built there.
We were at .500, 43–43, at the All-Star Break but still only 3½ games out of first place. From July 11 to July 30, we won 13 of 17 and even climbed into first place for six days, from July 26 to August 4. August had often been the cruelest month for me, and this one was no different. After we beat the Rockies, 6–5, in Colorado on August 8, to remain just one game back, I was reminded of the remarkable run the Rockies had made in 2007 when they won 14 of their last 15 regular-season games and then won all seven of their playoff games to get to the World Series. Up to now it had been an up-and-down season in which we never could get a good streak going to take charge of what was a mediocre division. I was feeling somewhat buoyant when I said to the writers, “In 2007, did anyone think the Rockies could get to the playoffs? We’re a lot better off than they were that year at this time. It’s amazing what a nice winning streak will do for you to make up ground in a hurry.” The next two days the Rockies beat us by identical 11–5 scores, and we wound up going 11–17 in August.
There were many reasons for our eventual 83–78 second-place finish in 2009: the fact that we scored 148 fewer runs than in 2008; the loss of Ramirez for two months; Soto (.218) falling victim to the sophomore jinx; Carlos Marmol (65 walks in 74 innings) incurring an alarming lapse of command that gave me pause to use him in the closer’s role; Zambrano’s being disabled twice with back issues; Soriano battling leg problems all year and driving in only 55 runs; our inability to acquire any substantial help at the trading deadline because of financial constraints; and the absence of any substantial major-league-ready prospects in the farm system. All of those were contributing factors, but none was more so, in my opinion, than the constant clubhouse upheaval caused by Milton Bradley. Good-chemistry teams have a way of playing through injuries and adversity. We just didn’t have that in 2009.
Shortly after the 2009 World Series, the Cubs had their organization meetings in Mesa. Ordinarily, we used these meetings to plot our course over the winter—trade possibilities, free agents we planned to target—but as Hendry noted, we were pretty much locked in with the roster we had, the one major objective being to trade Bradley. Rather, the highlight of the meetings was the appearance of Tom Ricketts and his family. On the first day, Ricketts addressed us and outlined his objectives. He talked about how, as a Cubs fan who grew up in the left field bleachers at Wrigley Field, he was so proud to be the team’s owner now. He was very passionate about doing what was necessary to finally get the Cubs to the World Series. At the same time, however, he said he was going to do it the right way, which meant building from the ground up. He talked about necessary major renovations to Wrigley Field and our outmoded spring training facility in Mesa, and he talked about restocking the farm system. I was very impressed with everything he said, and I knew in time the Ricketts ownership was going to be successful.
The only major acquisition Jim made that winter was the signing of the free agent center fielder Marlon Byrd, who’d hit 20 homers with 89 RBI for Texas in 2009. Then, on December 18, Hendry made everyone’s day by trading Bradley to Seattle for the right-handed starter Carlos Silva in a straight salary-dump exchange.
I wish I could say the jettisoning of Bradley made everything well again. There was no question the clubhouse chemistry was greatly improved, but we just didn’t play very well. After flirting around .500 for most of April, we fell under it May 4 and never got back. After a string of 9 losses in 11 games in May, Hendry came down to the clubhouse for a talk with me and our hitting coach, Rudy Jaramillo, whom he’d hired away from Texas over the winter. At the time, we were at the bottom half of the league in runs and Hendry wanted to know what was wrong and what could be done about it.
“This is a three-year program,” Jaramillo answered.
“Three years?” exclaimed Hendry. “I’m on a three-month program!”
I guess Rudy thought he had more time.
As it turned out, I, too, was on a three-month program. As the losing continued—by June 12, we were 27–35—I was growing more and more frustrated. The team was trying, giving me effort, but it was clear that my veteran core—Lee, Ramirez, and Soriano—were all beginning to slow down. At the same time, there was almost constant media speculation about my future, with my contract expiring at the end of the season. It seemed like there was always some sort of blowup when we played the White Sox in the intracity interleague series. Before the first game against the White Sox, on June 11, I was asked a question about my two rookies, the shortstop Starlin Castro and the center fielder Tyler Colvin, who were gradually working their way into the lineup. This reminded me of some critical remarks made about me by a White Sox TV broadcaster, Steve Stone, a former Cy Young Award winner. Three days earlier, Stone had suggested I was retarding the progress of Colvin, who he maintained should be playing every day.
I explained to the writers I had four other proven, veteran outfielders—Soriano, Fukodome, Byrd, and Xavier Nady—who also deserved to play, and that it was just not fair to abandon one or two of them. Then I laid into Stone by saying, “What job has he had in baseball besides talking on television or radio? What has he ever done? Why isn’t he farm director and bringing some kids around? Why isn’t he the general manager? Why hasn’t he ever put the uniform on and been the pitching coach? Why hasn’t he been a field manager? There are thirty teams out there who could use a guy’s expertise like that. I’m tired of some of these guys.”
Stone maybe had a p
oint that Colvin was providing some young energy for us. But he was also striking out a lot and I was trying to bring him along slowly. Stone was very opinionated and I was never one to take criticism well. In this case I just felt he should stick to commenting on his own team, the White Sox. I actually like Stone. I’d admired his competitiveness as a pitcher, and he does know his baseball. With my pal Hawk Harrelson, the Sox’s lead broadcaster, serving as mediator, we were able to patch things up.
Two weeks after my flap with Stone, in the first game of the second Cubs–White Sox series, my ever-volatile number one starter, Carlos Zambrano, had another temper tantrum, this one with my team leader, Derrek Lee. Zambrano had apparently gotten upset when Lee, who was playing in for a possible bunt, was unable to make a play on Juan Pierre’s hard-hit leadoff double down the right field line in the first inning. After the inning, in which the White Sox went on to score four runs, Zambrano went after Lee in the dugout and we had to separate the two. For me, this was just another thing I’d had enough of, having to explain to the media why these periodic meltdowns by one of my players weren’t symptomatic of discord on the entire team. In announcing he was suspending Zambrano indefinitely and sending him to anger-management classes, Hendry said it all: “His conduct is unacceptable. We’ll play with twenty-four before we tolerate that kind of behavior. His actions toward his teammates and staff were unacceptable. This has become a bit of a tired act.”
It was around that same time Hendry approached me about my contract situation and asked me if I would be interested in signing an extension. I told him I didn’t think so, that after the season I was probably going to pack it in. He wasn’t happy. From that point on our relationship began to deteriorate. But I had my reasons. I was sixty-six and wasn’t sure what direction the team was going in, although I suspected from Ricketts’s comments that the Cubs would probably want to start tearing it down and building it back up from within. In addition, my mom’s health was failing and I was anticipating needing to spend more time closer to home.
