Cubs manager out to enjoy last laugh

Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein looks on as Joe Maddon, left, is introduced at the new manager of the Cubs baseball team Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, in Chicago.
Chicago Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein looks on as Joe Maddon, left, is introduced at the new manager of the Cubs baseball team Monday, Nov. 3, 2014, in Chicago.

MESA, Ariz. -- After Chicago Cubs second baseman Javier Baez was pummeled trying to turn a double play the other night against the Los Angeles Angels, Manager Joe Maddon rushed out of the dugout wondering if he would need smelling salts.

"Javy was clocked like an NFL quarterback," Maddon recalled Friday before the Cubs-White Sox game at Sloan Park. "I ran out to ask him when was the last time a Puerto Rican played in the NFL because he got smoked. Then he got right back up and kept playing. Loved it."

This is what people love about Maddon. Humor accompanies almost every exchange, enthusiasm appreciated with every encounter. He turns simple questions into detailed anecdotes, conversations into memories. He plays music during stretching and sings a happy tune on tough topics.

The approach makes Maddon immune to monotony, whether he's revealing his favorite episodes of The Office or recalling the day he enjoyed a postgame beer at the Cork and Kerry outside U.S. Cellular Field and learned about the Cubs-Sox rivalry.

"I tipped a few Guinness with the boys, and they told me what they thought about the Cubs," Maddon said.

But don't let the levity Maddon injects into the daily routine leave the wrong impression about the Cubs. Maddon's arrival suggests baseball can laugh with the Cubs but no longer at them. His presence, fun as it is, coincides with the Cubs becoming more serious than ever about winning -- a point driven home when pitcher Edwin Jackson got lost driving to the ballpark.

Jackson blaming Google Maps for showing up late for his Tuesday start offered all sorts of one-liners for a manager as entertaining as Maddon. Well, I don't have to tell you that Edwin has had problems lately with location.

Instead, Maddon demonstrated why people consider him the ideal guy to develop all the young talent on the Cubs. He left no doubt he knows when to yuk it up and when to lay down the law; where the line is between funny and firm.

"I wasn't happy with it, to be honest with you," Maddon said of Jackson's tardiness. "I love the guy, but that just can't happen."

If Maddon occasionally sounds like a parent, consider the young, impressionable team he manages. Jackson, 31, is too old to require a lecture, but even so-called veterans Starlin Castro and Anthony Rizzo, both 25, remain young enough to benefit from having Maddon teach them how to be winners.

The excitement over so many talented but unproven major-league players in need of molding reminds Maddon of his early days in the Angels system when Whitey Herzog became the general manager from 1993-94.

"Whitey jumped in and pretty much blessed the prospects -- Tim Salmon, [Damion] Easley, Garret Anderson ... and all of a sudden people felt these guys could play," Maddon said. "People really didn't feel that strong about them until Whitey blessed them. That was the last time I think I've seen that kind of a group of players create this kind of stir."

To develop the chemistry he wants, expect Maddon occasionally to stir it up. Expect the engaging manager to sharpen an edgy bunch that will adopt his attitude, a process likely to result in the Cubs no longer being lovable or losers -- the way it worked with the Rays.

A sly grin crossed Maddon's face Friday as he recalled two spring training fights with his Rays team before the 2008 season, a breakthrough year. One came against the Yankees and the other included the Red Sox, a melee Maddon proudly said he started by screaming into the dugout.

"I think it was attitudinal," Maddon said of the effect. "Some of that stuff is necessary."

Inevitably, some of that stuff figures to involve a feisty Cubs team unlikely to be intimidated under Maddon, who answered a question about National League managers by referencing a collision at the plate he once had in the minors with Pirates Manager Clint Hurdle.

The mentality Maddon seeks in his clubhouse was obvious, his message clear.

"Leadership's not given, leadership is taken," Maddon said. "If we're going to ascend in this division, we have to take it."

Sports on 03/29/2015

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