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Ryne Sandberg quit on Phillies, plain and simple

A guy who was brought in to make his young players fundamentally sound decided he just couldn't take the losing anymore.

THE NARRATIVE surrounding Ryne Sandberg since his resignation as Phillies manager a month ago seems to lack the appropriate outrage.

After all, how could a man walk away from a once-in-a-lifetime job?

Perhaps there was an underlying family issue. Perhaps Sandberg has a personality disorder, or some ingrained shortcoming, that made the daily grind of major league leadership too much to bear.

The Phillies visited the Cubs this weekend, the organization with which Sandberg became a Hall of Fame second baseman . . . and the organization that, after four years of watching him do splendid work in the minors, refused to give him a chance at managing in the major leagues.

Perhaps a trip to Chicago would unearth a circumstance that would make Sandberg's decision appear less bizarre. Decency dictated a chance for the story to unfold further.

Apparently, there is no Rest of the Story.

Sandberg just quit.

Quitting, in baseball, is unforgivable.

There is no game clock in baseball and overtime can be endless. The best comebacks come on diamonds.

Teams are mathematically relevant long past their expiration dates, and any team in the postseason can pull the perfect matchup and win it all, regardless of its shortcomings; the Phillies proved that in 2008.

Heck, if a player doesn't run hard to first base, he is castigated.

Sandberg always ran hard. Played hard. Worked hard.

Still, he quit. He quit on the organization that gave him his first chance at a job for which much better men have toiled an entire lifetime.

For that, this should be his last chance.

He abandoned a young team to which he was hired to preach the religion of baseball: how to show up, lace up and buck up, every single day.

He fled in the face of relentless incompetence and his own imminent removal. It was a lousy environment, yes; but, to a small degree, it was an environment he helped create.

Sandberg's team often played a comically poor brand of baseball.

After nearly two seasons at its helm and - more important, two full spring trainings, with brilliant baseball mind Larry Bowa at his side - the joke was on Sandberg. Sandberg was supposed to teach the fundamentals. Instead, he produced a team that was fundamentally flawed.

And, no, Sandberg didn't just inherit a roster full of young dunderheads better suited for the minors. Sandberg helped mold them. Among the disappointing major league Phillies whom Sandberg managed at Triple A were Jake Diekman, Justin de Fratus, and, for a good portion of two seasons, Domonic Brown, who is, to date, the club's poster child for bad planning.

Interim manager Pete Mackanin said he would wait until after the All-Star break to assert himself.

What does it say, then, that, since the break, his Phillies have won eight of nine, the best stretch since Sept. 3-12, 2012? That the Phillies played error-free ball last weekend? That they slammed 21 extra-base hits in Chicago, their best power showing in 14 years?

These are the same Sandberg Phillies who suffered from years of poor drafts because of misevaluations and limited picks; contract extensions given to aging players; and an incestuous inner structure that rewards loyalty like a family instead of evaluating performance like a business.

Sandberg was appointed Charlie Manuel's third-base coach after the 2012 season. He had 10 1/2 months to plumb the depths of every issue in the organization from a major league perspective; every player's personality, every coach's quirk, every front-office foible. The ax fell on Manuel in August 2013 and Sandberg was named interim manager. A month later, he got the job for good.

He accepted the weight of turning around a roster filled with entitled oldsters and ill-prepared youngsters. He knew exactly what he was inheriting; exactly how hard the job would be.

Still, he quit.

Before weighing his stated reasons, let's be clear about Sandberg's degree of failure.

He never commanded respect in the clubhouse - respect that Bowa demanded from 2001-2004, that Manuel earned in the next decade.

Why?

Not because he lacked the communication skills necessary; when impassioned, Sandberg is a clear, direct and intimidating man.

Rather, Sandberg did not assert his considerable weight. No person in the organization cast a larger shadow. However, Sandberg repeatedly allowed public insubordination, without penalty, from veterans and youths alike.

Certainly, the players' alarming lack of respect for the office of manager, the front office and the paying public was not of Sandberg's making. It fell to Sandberg, straight-arrow and hard-nosed, to repair that lack of respect; it was his core; his essence. Respect was, after all, the theme of his Hall of Fame acceptance speech.

He failed.

Not everyone is built to endure the sorts of failure that only major league managers know.

If an NBA or NHL coach loses 15 games in a month, that coach is on the hot seat.

If a baseball team loses 15 games in a month, that's August.

Baseball teams play 162 times, about twice as many as the winter sports, 10 times more than NFL teams. That doesn't mean that managers hurt half as much, or one-tenth as much, as other coaches when they lose.

In his vague and incomplete resignation news conference, Sandberg said the losing was getting to be too much, since he was "old school." Since when is quitting "old school"? How "old school" is it to ride out a storm only when you're guaranteed a future calm; to keep going to work only when you're guaranteed a job for life?

The last "old-school" coach in Philadelphia quit on his team, too: Sixers quitter Doug Collins.

In fact, in Collins' resignation news conference in April 2013, Collins admitted he had decided to quit in the middle of the season. To his credit, Collins kept coming to work, kept teaching young players, kept pushing veterans.

Sandberg just quit.

On Twitter: @inkstainedretch