Valentine as Cubs manager? Finally, a decent rumor
This is the time of year when a good trade rumors is worth its weight in gold, and a bad one is worth its weight in, well, gold.
In other words, a rumor is a rumor is a rumor, and if you don't have five of them at the ready at any given moment, you live in the park and you eat out of dumpsters.
For instance, over the past five days, those helpful and diligent aggregators at mlbrumors.com have listed 111 potential/mythical relocators, or nearly 15 percent of the available roster spots in the major leagues.
And those names do not include the five people in the Dan Haren trade, or the hopelessly injured, like David DeJesus or Ben Sheets.
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| Bobby Valentine (in Japan in 2005) likes himself for the Cubs' job. (Getty Images) |
Bobby Valentine to manage the Cubs, question mark.
In fact, it wasn't even so much a suggestion as it was an inquiry from Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune to Valentine, in Chicago for the Cubs-Cardinals game. And as Sullivan surely must have known, Valentine nearly busted a neck spring nodding in assent.
"As far as the job coming open at the end of the season, anyone that considers himself a manager would think about how attractive this opportunity is, and every once in a while I consider myself a manager," is what Valentine told Sullivan. This means, "I would crawl shirtless around the circumference of Indianapolis Motor Speedway while it was coated with boiling tar for the job, and thank you for asking."
And this from a man who described his near-hiring by the Florida Marlins thusly:
"If this is a major-league process, I hope I'm never in the process again."
Now that's something -- a job offer Bobby Valentine found detestable.
But the Cubs? Given that it may the worst good job in the majors (or best bad job, take your pick), Valentine would be a staggering notion.
We've thought this before, of course. Piniella was supposed to be big enough to tackle the problem. So was Dusty Baker. In fact, going back to Leo Durocher, the Cubs have flirted often with the bigger-than-life type as their manager, only to see them all dragged toward the event horizon and then straight into the wormhole of expectations, romantic hopes and various other forms of jinxery.
Piniella's stay began well, as did Baker's, but by the end they both looked like they'd been President for two terms. Abraham Lincoln aged better, and that was before the play at the theatre.
But Valentine may be more willing to stick his chin out and say, "Go ahead, take your best shot" than any manager since Durocher. Comfortable with the notion that he is always the smartest guy in the room, he seeks power and attention commensurate with that level of scholarship, in exchange for his considerable managing skill.
And Chicago would make that deal in a heartbeat, as it did with Piniella and Durocher. Chicago would hire Rod Blagojevich if it thought he could beat the Cardinals.
It would be a spectacularly weird collaboration. Valentine would charm the city, the city would love being charmed, and then when the city started asking for more than charm ... well, you know. A hypernova.
And we'd want to see it, more desperately than Bill Parcells at Vanderbilt, or Geno Auriemma with the Miami Heat. It would be what scientists call a cataclysmic event, and what we would call must-see television. The irresistible object (Valentine) meeting the immovable force (the Cubs' lack of self-esteem), with both sides losing spectacularly.
Now that, kids, is a rumor. Dan Haren to the Angels? Pfah! Try Derek Jeter to the Pirates, and then we'll consider changing our minds.
Oops. Make that 112 names.
Ray Ratto is a columnist for Comcast Sports Bay Area in San Francisco.
