So what if the team from the Second City finished second-best? For once, Don Zimmer is in first place.
Zimmer, who led the Chicago Cubs to the National League East title before losing to San Francisco in five games in the playoffs, was a near-unanimous choice for NL Manager of the Year in voting announced Tuesday."I think it's a great thing to have the writers vote you the Manager of the Year," Zimmer said. "It's a great honor. It's never happened to me before."
He garnered all but one of the 24 first-place votes cast by a panel chosen by the Baseball Writers Association of America.
The other first place vote went to San Francisco's Roger Craig, Zimmer's close friend and former teammate.
"You feel like you want to share it with everybody who played a part," Zimmer said, "the players who did the playing and Jim Frey, who hired me and got criticized for doing it. It just seemed like every move he made helped out the club.
"Jim Frey took a lot of criticism," Zimmer noted, saying that some people accused the general manager of hiring him out of friendship and not because he could do the job.
Zimmer did the job, leading the Cubs into postseason play for only the second time since World War II and nailing down his first division title in 11 seasons as a major-league manager.
It was vindication for Zimmer, who was run out of Boston for not leading the Red Sox to a division title in the late 1970s.
Boston blew a 14 1/2-game lead in 1978 and eventually lost the AL East to New York in a playoff. The Red Sox were 411-304 during his 4 1/2 seasons but Zimmer got very little credit.
"We didn't win what you call the big one," Zimmer said of his Boston days.
"I think this (the Cubs' season) was a lot more satisfying because we finished fourth last year."
There wasn't total satisfaction, though, and Zimmer was anything but content, particularly with the outcome of the pennant series with San Francisco.
"I was a dummy the last three games we played, a total dummy, but that's baseball," he said. "I didn't do anything different the last three games we played, except the decisions I made didn't turn out too good."
Zimmer got 118 points in the 5-3-1 voting and Craig, who received 17 second-place votes, got 62.
Whitey Herzog of St. Louis was third with 31 points and Art Howe of Houston was fourth with four points. Jack McKeon of San Diego got one point.
Zimmer, 58, was named manager of the Cubs on Nov. 20, 1987, replacing Frank Lucchesi. Chicago finished 77-85 in 1988 and improved to 93-69 this year, winning the division by six games over New York.
The Cubs were 9-23 in spring training, the worst record in the majors. Zimmer was criticized but the team's play reversed as soon as the season started.
"You have to give the players the credit," Zimmer said. "I don't know how many times I said it, but I never threw a pitch and I never hit a ball. All I can do is manage the way I want to manage."