Uncle Lou Sticks It To Stone

It's obvious that Lou Piniella is starting to crack under the pressure of his underachieving team when he resorts to an ad hominem attack against White Sox TV broadcaster Steve Stone while also reminding us of what a great manager he is.

Piniella did not take kindly to the always intelligent and opinionated Stone's criticism of him on Monday's Chicago Tribune Live for mishandling several players, including rookie outfielder Tyler Colvin.

We agreed with Stone, but according to Uncle Lou, we shouldn't be allowed to express our opinions regarding his managerial skills because we have never filled out a lineup card.

"I won over 1,800 games as a manager and I'm not a damn dummy, that I can tell you," Piniella said. "There are only 13 other (managers) that have won more games than me. I guess I think I know what the hell I'm doing."

So according to Piniella's twisted logic, he is infallible.

Uncle Lou reserved most of his venom for Stoney.

"And Steve Stone? He's got enough problems doing what he does with the White Sox. What job has he had in baseball besides talking on television or radio? What has he done?

"Why isn't he a farm director and bring some kids around? Why isn't he a general manager, and put the uniform on and been a pitching coach? Why hasn't he been a field manager. There's 30 teams out there that could use a guy's expertise like that. I'm tired of some of these guys, I really am. Now that's it. Let's go to baseball."

Stone's classy response to Piniella's tirade was mature, well thought out, and perfectly expressed.

Basically, Stone said that Uncle Lou is entitled to his opinion. But he also said that the Cubs skipper should grow up.

"I''ve been talking about Tyler Colvin for well over a month, that he should be playing every day," Stone said. "I felt if you broke camp with this guy, you've got to play him. Or let him hit in Triple-A. Just let him swing the bat. I haven't seen one guy that gets better on the bench. Not one.

"He's entitled to his opinion and I've always respected Lou. My respect for Lou has nothing to do with what I said. Before he got the job, he was a guy I had championed for the job, because I thought he was the best man for the job at that point.

"I've probably said about 5,000 nice things about Lou Piniella. And now I say something and he doesn't particularly like. . . well, he didn't come up to me and say thanks a lot for saying those nice things. But now he decides, when I say something he doesn't like, he's going to go into my past. My past is pretty good. I've seen a lot of games in both leagues, done a lot of things.

"Lou was a terrific ballplayer, won a lot of world championships and he's been a great manager. I'm not going to criticize anything he's done.

"It was an observance and when you need to have a front-office job to make an observance about baseball, there's going to be nobody working in baseball. None of you media guys are going to be working in baseball because then you can't say anything because you've never been in the front office. That might be one of the dumber things he's said."