It seems the first step in a major Chicago Cubs rebuild effort will be the likely retirement of Lou Piniella and the end of the 2010 season. The Cubs seem to prefer to make Cubs legend Ryan Sandberg the manger of their big team. While the organization has been grooming Sandberg to one day take the big league managerial job, I would prefer to see bench coach Alan Trammell get a shot at managing this team for two very different reasons.

The first is as a fan of Sandberg, I would hate to see him take over a bad baseball team, not having any success early in his big league managerial career, and possible get run out of town. That would be a tragedy. The Cubs are not going to be good for the next couple of years, and to be frank even a guy like Sandberg could use a few years as a team’s bench coach.

My second reason is Trammell was my boy hood hero and I actually think he could help this team. Sure Trammell got a really bad deal in his managerial stint with the Detroit Tigers, but he did teach a number of Tigers players how to play the game of baseball the right way, and more than a few of those players have served with the Tigers for a pretty long time.

In the end Sandberg and Trammell really are the same guy. They were both drafted in the late 1970’s, and both were loved by their home team fans. They were also both middle infielders who played the game with a workmanlike attitude, which only increased their popularity with the fans. I could see a few years as Trammel as manger, and Sandberg as bench coach as teh team slowly rebuilds.

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•Chicago Cubs news and notes

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•MTR Baseball.com