If you’re a fan of baseball, learning that Lou Piniella is leaving the game probably has you a little sad. He’s been around pro baseball since 1962, when the Cleveland Indians signed him as an amateur free agent at the age of 18. In nearly half a century, he was a good player who became better known as a fiery and talented manager for five teams in 23 seasons. But as he leaves the game he loves, his early retirement (one he had originally planned for the end of the season) will secure in the minds of sports fans how important family is for Piniella.
As ESPNChicago.com notes, this is the second time that the baseball giant has left a job for family considerations. The first time, he gave up managing the Seattle Mariners, a team he had guided to three straight 90-plus win seasons (including a record-tying 116 wins in 2001), to be home in Florida and manage the lowly Tampa Bay Devil Rays.
Piniella explained in an interview, “My father was not doing well and my daughter was going through a divorce, and it was time for me to come home.” His father, Louis, passed away in 2005, the same year as Piniella’s final season with the Devil Rays.
Now, his mother, Margaret, 90, who taught him how to play baseball, is in failing health. Piniella knows it’s time to be with her, leaving his position as manager of the Chicago Cubs. Carmine Iavarone, Piniella’s childhood friend, said, “His father was wonderful, but she was the athlete of the family and that was well before women’s lib. Everyone says Lou takes after his mom.”
Since she was the reason he joined the game of baseball, it seems only fitting that she’s the reason he left. As Piniella was quoted in Tampa Bay Online, “She hasn’t gotten any better since I’ve been here. She’s had other complications, and rather than continue to go home, come back, it’s not fair to the team, it’s not fair to the players. So the best thing is just to step down and go home and take care of my mother.”
I’d like to issue a fond farewell to Piniella, a man who lived and breathed the game, but knew when it was time to go. Hopefully fans will see you soon enough as a new inductee in the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Photo by Jauerback via Wikimedia Commons.