"It ain't going to drive me crazy," Piniella says

CHICAGO — Someone mentioned to Lou Piniella on Monday how old and tired Joe Torre was looking during the Yankees' early season struggles. Lou asked if he looked that way, too, in the midst of a Cubs start overflowing with defeats and controversy.

"You did last week."

Lou chuckled. He was in good spirits: The Cubs were finally getting in a groove, the Mariners were coming to town, and his classic dirt-kicking, hat-throwing outburst last Saturday seemed to have a cathartic effect on his mounting frustration.

On Tuesday, following a rare one-run Cubs victory a night earlier, Piniella was in an even better mood pregame at Wrigley. He was clearly savoring the opportunity to renew ties with the handful of Mariners personnel left over from his glory days in Seattle.

He talked about how much he enjoyed strolling down Michigan Avenue from his downtown condo. Asked if he was recognized, Piniella grinned: "Usually, I wear a baseball cap and dark glasses. Hey, we're below .500."

For Piniella, it has been an elusive journey to regain his winning stature since asking out of his Seattle contract after the 2002 season to return home to Tampa Bay.

His tenure with the Devil Rays was marked with frustration, losses, and the eventual realization that ownership was not as committed to winning as he was.

Piniella asked out of his contract again, sat out a year, and then took on the most unrequited challenge in sports: Winning a title with the Cubs. He admits now, as Dusty Baker had before him, that he had little idea what he was getting into.

"It's not easy," Piniella said. "It's a little bit more daunting than it looks from the outside. It really is. I guess it's because they haven't won here for so long. That's the reason. We have to change the culture.

"I have grandmothers tell me, 'You know, I'm 90 years old. I haven't seen this team win. Will you please have some urgency?' I tell them, 'Look, I'm 63. I ain't going to manage much longer. There's some urgency on my part, too.' "

Piniella's first two months in Chicago have been rocky in some surprising ways. There are rumblings of player disenchantment, talk that they resent Piniella's tendency to blame them for the team's struggles while absolving himself.

"I get along well with the players," Piniella countered. "A couple of them were a little dissatisfied they weren't playing every day, but what can I do? I can only play eight people."

Piniella has at times been combative with the media. Columnists and talk-show hosts, in turn, were less than favorable in their appraisal of his managing as the Cubs fell to 22-32.

The Tribune dubbed him "Losing-It Lou," the Sun Times "Lost Lou" and "Loopy Lou." Columnist Jay Mariotti predicted Piniella wouldn't last past Labor Day, and after the manager's meltdown, Mariotti wrote: "It's legitimate to wonder if Piniella is the wrong man for the job after his pathetic tantrum."

Piniella admits the Chicago media has been more aggressive than he expected.

"I tell you what, you get in that [interview] room after a game, and you've lost a tough ball game, they take their damn belt off," he said.

Matters came to a head last week when, following an ugly dugout fight between pitcher Carlos Zambrano and catcher Michael Barrett on Friday that spilled over into the clubhouse, Piniella went ballistic the next day arguing a close play at third.

Many believe the tantrum was premeditated. Replays showed the call by umpire Mark Wegner was correct. Piniella was suspended for four days. And the Cubs, heading into Tuesday's game, had a 6-3 record since the incident.

"I wrote the guy [Wegner] a note, and I apologized to him," Piniella said. "That will be the last time I ever kick dirt. Ever again. I'm done. My sandbox days are over. No hat, no dirt, nothing.

"I never did it to degrade anybody. I just did it to put on a little show. I used to see Billy Martin and Earl Weaver, in my era. That's what they did.

"It never had been brought up to me that if someone kicked dirt on me, I wouldn't like it. This time, it was. I thought about it. They were absolutely right. I said to myself, 'No more.' I never put two and two together, for whatever reason. I guess because umpires never kicked dirt back at me."

Amid the turmoil, Piniella says he hasn't wavered in his belief that he can deliver the first Cubs title since 1908. Not even after games like Tuesday's 5-3 loss in 13 innings. His good mood having evaporated, a fuming Piniella declined to talk to the media.

"We're going to get it done here," he declared before the game. "It might take a little more time than I envisioned. But we'll get it done."

In the meantime, while time-honored Cubs ineptitude rears its head, Piniella swears he's not going to go off the deep end like his close friend (and former Mariners hitting coach) Lee Elia. As Chicago's manager in 1983, Elia gained infamy for his expletive-filled tirade, in which he said of Cubs fans, "Eighty-five percent of the world is working. The other fifteen percent come out here."

"It ain't going to drive me crazy," Piniella said. "I want to get it done, but it's not going to drive me crazy."

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com