Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Columnist Dean Juipe: Riggleman safe despite Cubs’ record

IN ALL of pro sports, there is only one team that doesn't have to win to make money. Enthusiastic fans keep coming, game after game, year after year, no matter how many losses or how inept the play.

The Chicago Cubs are that unique.

They haven't won a division title since 1989, haven't won a National League title since 1945 and haven't won the World Series since 1908.

Nonetheless, the Cubs are a moneymaking machine, regularly filling Wrigley Field and drawing solid TV ratings on their national cable network, WGN. The team's record has never impacted its financial standing.

They're the Lovable Cubs, the Cubbies, the born losers who are immune to heightened criticism no matter how firmly they're ensconced in the cellar.

And that's where they are again this year, 48-72 and buried in the NL Central.

For all their faults, the Cubs have a man managing the team who is regarded as one of the brightest minds and strategists in the game. No matter how terrible his team's record, it seems unlikely Jim Riggleman will be fired or be asked to take the fall.

"Well, you can never feel too secure with a record as bad as ours," Riggleman said Tuesday from Los Angeles, where the Cubs played a brief two-game series with the Dodgers. "I really don't know what to think about that."

He may not feel comfortable saying it, but he's safe. As bad as the Cubs are, Riggleman isn't apt to be held personally responsible for his team's continued lack of success.

"Years ago, when I was managing in the minor leagues, I'd see a team struggling in the majors and I'd wonder how I'd handle it if it was mine," he said. "Now I'm in that situation and the only conclusion I can offer is that it has very little effect on you.

"You really put aside all the thoughts about what might happen to you if you don't turn it around. You just concentrate on having your guys play hard so you don't totally cave in before the season's over."

Riggleman, 46, managed the Las Vegas Stars for two seasons, 1991 and '92. It was obvious then he was headed for the big leagues, and he put in two seasons with the San Diego Padres before taking the Cubs' job in 1995.

He seems just as personable today as he did during his tenure in Las Vegas.

"This is pretty much what I thought it would be," he said of being the high-profile manager of Chicago's favorite team. "The city itself, the stadium, even the appeal of (broadcaster) Harry Caray ... all these things make it a place where people want to go. It makes for a lot of distractions for the players, because you constantly have visitors coming in who think you're a tour guide.

"Everybody wants to come and see you. It's not only the favorite stop for visiting players in the league, but every aunt, cousin, friend or fraternity brother you ever had will eventually come to a Cubs game and will ask to see you."

Distractions, however, don't explain the Cubs' miserable record. Riggleman said it's more a case of simply not having enough talented players.

"Maybe we came out of spring training over-evaluating what we had," he said. "If everyone would have played to their maximum ability, maybe we could have contended for one of the top spots in the division. But not everyone is going to play to their maximum ability, and that's left us with something of a mixed bag of a lineup.

"We're very right-handed and we're vulnerable to right-handed pitching in a league with a lot of good right-handed pitching."

Riggleman's roster was tweaked last week when the Cubs put pitcher Terry Mullholland on waivers and traded outfielder Brian McRae and pitchers Mel Rojas and Turk Wendell to the New York Mets for outfielder Lance Johnson and a couple of spare parts. The Cubs didn't appear to gain a lot but Riggleman isn't complaining.

"I thought they were moves we needed to make," he said. "But we still don't have all the pieces we need to get to the top."

The top? It may not be the general consensus but there are those who feel the Cubs' front office, with money pouring in, doesn't really strive to get to the top.

"The team's management gets accused of being satisfied all the time, but I can tell you that's not really the case," Riggleman said. "They care, I know they do. We're all totally embarrassed by the way things have gone this season.

"I know it eats at me daily."

On the corporate side, however, the pain is eased by counting box-office receipts. In a stadium that seats 38,765, the Cubs are averaging 27,420.

The bottom-liners can smile, even if a foot soldier like Riggleman cannot.

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