What started out as a season of high hopes for Lou Piniella’s return to baseball has already reached a low point, after he believed it couldn’t get any lower.
Friday’s dugout/clubhouse fight between pitcher Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett left the manager with the answer to his question of how things could get worse than the way his veteran team has been playing.
“You don’t want to see people fight one another on your own team,” Piniella said. “And at the same time you don’t want to see some of the silliness that’s going on on the field.
“I only have so many players I can play and it’s about time some of them started playing like major-leaguers. Or get somebody else in here who can catch the ball or run the bases properly.”
Piniella’s voice grew angrier as he talked, his frustration obviously building.
That’s the way Piniella ended his postgame news conference after Friday’s 8-5 loss to the Braves.
Earlier he had been asked if his team appeared “unorganized.”
“Unorganized?” he echoed. “We’re not doing smart things on the field. I don’t know how to respond to your question. Unorganized? We’re not doing things we should. … We’ve talked about the things that make us look silly sometimes. … I know what I would do, but we’ll leave it at that.”
The fight stemmed more from frustration than from a rift on the team, and it’s not the first time Piniella has been involved in this kind of situation. He played with the “Bronx Zoo” Yankees and also was involved in a clubhouse scuffle with reliever Rob Dibble while managing the Reds.
“This is not the first time players have fought on a team,” he said. “When I was with the Yankees, it seemed like it happened a lot. But it shouldn’t happen. You should concentrate your energies and efforts on the opposing team.”
Though Piniella has blown up at reporters’ questions and had one postgame shouting match with umpires in the runway this season, he has not yet been kicked out of a game.
The subject came up before the Zambrano-Barrett brouhaha, when Piniella was in a much calmer mood. And it came up because Friday’s opposing manager was Atlanta’s Bobby Cox, who is one short of tying the record for ejections with 130.
Piniella has 59 but has rarely argued on the field this season, despite those old clips of him throwing bases in anger. Even Cubs Class A rookie manager Ryne Sandberg, so mild-mannered as a player, has already been booted three times and suspended once for giving an umpire a forearm.
“It’s amazing — we really haven’t had any arguments as a team,” Piniella said. “Basically, our games have been umpired well.
“I haven’t seen anything on the field that I thought was flagrant enough to go out there and really argue about. Put it this way: The umpiring is not the cause we’re [22-30]. Umpiring in our games has been consistent and good. Why go argue with somebody if they’re doing their job?”
Piniella predicted his ejection drought would end “soon,” although he did not put a timetable on it.
“It’ll happen,” he said. “Look, let me tell you this: When a team loses and a manager cares, it’s harder on him than anybody else. But at the same time, why go bother somebody who has nothing to do with what’s causing the problem in the first place.
“I’m sure I’ll be out there sooner or later. … I don’t get kicked out that much. I never have in my career. But when I argue, I usually present a better argument than most guys, a little more demonstrative. And they’ll play it over and over.”
Right now he has to worry about them playing the Zambrano-Barrett fight over and over.
—
Breaking down the combatants
Perhaps it was kismet. Notre Dame safety and fifth-year senior Tom Zbikowski (above), a professional boxer on the side, was on hand for the Michael Barrett-Carlos Zambrano skirmish because he threw out the first pitch and sang during the seventh-inning stretch. Zbikowski said he didn’t see the dugout fracas, but he remembered the Barrett-A.J. Pierzynski bout last season. “Barrett has a nice right hand,” Tommy Z said. “He just had to turn his hips into it a little more and Pierzynski would have been down. If he ever needs lessons, he should let me know.”
Tale of the tape %% BARRETT ZAMBRANO
Atlanta BORN Venezuela
30 AGE 26
6-3 HEIGHT 6-5
210 WEIGHT 255
SOME OTHER RUN-INS
R. Oswalt, B. Bonds,
D. Roberts, J. Edmonds,
Pierzynski Pierzynski
STRANGE INJURY
Intrascrotal Tennis hematoma elbow from e-mail
%%
