The Managers players don’t want to play for……………….

Last week Sports Illustrated published a pole on baseball players during spring training which asked them what managers they would least want to play for. To my surprise Lou Piniella was number one with 26 percent. Ozzie Guillen came in second place with 21 percent. It is interesting to note that players could not vote for their own managers. Thus, Chicago’s two baseball managers, Lou Piniella and Ozzie Guillen are not managers players would not want to play for. They combined for an astounding 47 percent, almost half of the players polled. In a distant third place was Tony La Russa with 10 percent, fourth place was a tie between Joe Torre and Eric Wedge with 4 percent each.

I understand why Ozzie Guillen received 21 percent. He is known to say anything on his mind, including talking about his players to the media. He never protects his players and will throw them under the bus without a second thought. A manager should call out his player when he feels it is needed, but should try to handle it internally. For instance Lou handled the Bradley incident a few weeks ago with the water cooler in a private manner. He told him to go home and didn’t go into much detail with the media. Ozzie would have told them the entire conversation. Ozzie is also known for holding grudges like the Sean Tracey incident a few years ago. I don’t know why Lou is not well liked. He gives his players space and lets them do their own thing if they are performing. He will also protect his players to a certain degree with the media. He won’t completely hide everything from the media, but won’t go into full detail. Any thought why Lou Piniella was ranked first among players for manager they would least likely want to play for?

I heard about this story last week on three separate occasions in one day. The first time I heard about it was on The Score in the morning. The second time I heard about it was on Espn 1000am, and the third time was from Len Kasper during the Cubs game. I forgot the hosts for the radio show I heard report them on, but the first one said that the survey was out of 300 players. The second radio show said 380 players. Then Len Kasper said 400 players were surveyed. I would like to know how many players were actually surveyed. Obviously at least two of these three reports got their facts wrong and that is not acceptable. There is a big difference between 300, 380, and 400 players. That is a difference between 12 teams, 15 teams, or 16 teams. If 380 or 400 players were surveyed that is almost half of the league. Does anyone know the actual number? Why is there such a discrepancy between these three sources of information?