Sandberg a bad fit for misfit Phillies

When the Chicago Cubs bypassed Ryne Sandberg for a managerial vacancy immediately after Sandberg had been voted the triple-A Pacific Coast League's manager of the year for that organization in 2010, the back-channel reason given was that the Cubs didn't want to be in the position of having to fire a franchise legend.

What general manager Jim Hendry, a protege of former team president Andy MacPhail, didn't explain, however, was why the Cubs were so sure they would have to.

Sandberg never got the opportunity to be a franchise legend with the Phillies, the team that drafted him in 1978, but it is where he did get his chance to manage a major-league team, such as it was. That tenure ended Friday, when Sandberg resigned his position 22 months after replacing Charlie Manuel.

A veteran of the way baseball works, Sandberg saved the Phils the chore of firing him, which was going to happen sooner rather than later. It wasn't just the team's record that would have been his undoing - although that was bad enough - he was also losing whatever grip he held on the locker room.

When Chase Utley showed him up June 16 by openly questioning strategy on the field, that was a tolling bell. Last week, when Utley went on the disabled list and Sandberg had not even been consulted or informed prior to the move, that was proof things had gone completely off the rails. The manager's chair wasn't officially empty for another few days, but it might as well have been.

Being the manager or head coach of elite professional athletes is accomplished only over a long period of time with a lot of luck and a lot of good players. Sandberg was not blessed with either. He replaced a popular, easygoing manager after a lengthy stretch of success had finally gone sour and also at the very moment the clubhouse began to blame the previous guy for its woes. As the slide continued, Sandberg, whose flat personality didn't serve him well, was unable to rally his players from their torpor.

Straight as a gun barrel, Sandberg believes in fundamentals, and he vowed to teach them regularly, which plays just fine in the minor leagues, where the guys have to listen to you, but not as well with big-leaguers. He had little blue squares painted on the inside corners of the bases at spring training so the players would be reminded how to run the bases properly. He instituted a regimen during the season that called for full infield, full outfield, and baserunning drills on a rotating basis before games, the sort of drudgery that the Phillies might have needed but not the sort that won Sandberg any support in the clubhouse. It won him eye rolls.

When he resigned, Sandberg alluded to the coming changes with the Phillies, specifically the apparently imminent hiring of MacPhail, and said he didn't want to be in the way. And that he was tired of losing.

"It's a tough enough job to do, but when you wore the shoes that I was in and felt what I was feeling on a daily basis and being dissatisfied with what was going on as far as on the field and the record, that weighed a lot on me," Sandberg said.

MacPhail will become the next Phillies president, although that title might arrive in a two-step process, with Pat Gillick finishing out the season in that office while MacPhail investigates and observes. What he will find is an organization that made some awful mistakes in the last five years, had poor luck as well, and still operates in much the same way it did decades ago.

Far from a newcomer to the game, MacPhail will understand how those things can happen, but he will also probably conclude that the scouting and player-development departments need to be overhauled and, barring a major surprise, that there needs to be a new general manager for the team to move forward with a clean slate.

The changes will be a shock to the system of a franchise that has always specialized in slow, mannered movements. That the organization would order up an outsider to do the dirty work is the least surprise of all.

Sandberg took one piece of that unsavory duty off MacPhail's plate on Friday. It was going to happen, anyway. He could have finished out the season, but maybe the clubhouse problems would have become more apparent. This let him leave with the dignity he deserved for doing the job in keeping with his hardbound beliefs, even if not successfully.

This might be why the Cubs never hired him - he was also available, but untapped, for the Chicago job a second time, in 2011, after leading the Lehigh Valley IronPigs to their first playoff appearance and earning Baseball America's minor-league manager of the year award. The Cubs aren't a good measuring stick for how to operate a baseball team, but no organization knew Sandberg better. Major-league legends aren't always suited to be major-league managers.

In the case of Sandberg and the Phillies, this was particularly true for a major-league legend who found himself managing a team of jaded veterans and misplaced minor-leaguers, none of whom wanted to be told how to run the bases.

Sandberg saw what was coming next, and he stepped out of the box to avoid the pitch. It still hurt, but at least he chose the spot.

@bobfordsports