Lou Piniella turns 67 next month. Last week he decided that 23 years managing five big league teams was enough, and he told the Cubs he’ll be stepping down and heading home to Tampa after the season.

“I’ll miss it some, sure, but it will be like weaning a baby off a bottle,” Piniella said. “I’ll find other things.”

Bobby Cox is 69, and he’s calling it a career after 29 years, 25 of them running the Atlanta Braves, who were postseason perennials on his watch. Joe Torre, 70, has managed 29 years with five teams and is weighing his future in the final year of a contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That’s at least 52 and possibly 81 years of Hall-of-Fame savvy leaving the game. Together the threesome has won six World Series (four by Torre) and 12 pennants and made 36 postseason appearances. Piniella’s .519 winning percentage is the lowest of the three, dragged down by the bad teams he managed in Tampa Bay.

Cox is in line to make it 37 postseason showings with his young Braves leading the National League East. Torre and Piniella have been in the playoffs within the last two years, so it doesn’t seem any of the three seniors has lost his fastball. But Piniella believes the ever-increasing demands of the job make the 20-year man an endangered species, especially at Wrigley Field.

Like Don Baylor and Dusty Baker before him, Piniella arrived as a high-profile, highly successful manager elsewhere, but he didn’t get it done here. Can anyone? Tony La Russa, a big league skipper for 32 years, is on an expiring contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. He’ll be in somebody’s dugout next season, but it won’t be the Cubs’.

“Ignore it,” La Russa said of dreamy speculation that he could be Chicago-bound.

La Russa has won two World Series, five pennants and 12 division titles with the White Sox, Athletics and Cardinals. “I’ve been in good situations,” he said, as if that’s all there is to surviving 32 years in a profession that eats its young. “Solid organizations with good players that give you a chance to compete. And people who believe in you.”

La Russa, 66 in October, is eligible to join Piniella, Cox and Torre in an AARP foursome. He doesn’t look 65, with his trim build and modishly styled, carefully colored hair. And he seems to have escaped the physical impairments that dog Cox and Torre, also fending off the past-his-prime paunch Piniella tries to conceal beneath a windbreaker.

“You have to start early to get 20 years in,” La Russa said. He was 34 when the White Sox hired him to replace player-manager Don Kessinger in August 1979. Since then, he has been unemployed for a total of three weeks.

La Russa’s passion for the game burns on unabated, but ancillary matters continue to chafe him. In Chicago it was critical broadcasters; in Oakland it was the after-the-fact revelation that those Bash Brothers home runs were chemically enhanced. In St. Louis he has feuded with Cardinals icon Ozzie Smith, and he manages in the Hall of Fame shadow of Whitey Herzog, whose simple tastes and affable personality made him pure St. Louis. Tony La Russa is pure baseball, delivered with white-hot intensity.

“Money and media” are the biggest threats to his serenity today, La Russa said. “Players hear mixed messages — ‘Get yours while you can,’ but it’s still a team game, not always about numbers.”

Media is a peculiar complaint in a one-newspaper town serving readers who love their Cardinals, but the team is always good enough to attract outside scrutiny.

“More outlets, more competition,” La Russa said. “Who are the stars, the guys who play the game or the guys who talk about it and write about it?”

La Russa was Ozzie Guillen’s first big league manager. There is mutual respect, but no trace of similarity. Whereas La Russa is as grim as a tax auditor, Guillen is a loose cannon, as ebullient as a schoolkid playing hooky. He’s 46 and in his seventh year managing the White Sox. Does he have 20 years in him?

“Why not?” Guillen said. “If the money’s right and it’s the right thing for my family.”

Guillen is the polar opposite of the tight-lipped La Russa in approaching news media relations. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen La Russa relaxed and enjoying himself, but I’ve only known him for 24 years. Guillen is an open book, with no thought left unspoken, sometimes to his detriment. “No comment” isn’t in his vocabulary.

“Being a manager in Chicago is like the weather in Chicago — it changes every day,” Guillen said. “If we win, they love me. If we lose, not so much. Earlier this year I said I could manage any team anywhere, and the fans got all mad at me — what’s he saying. I wasn’t saying ‘I’m the great Ozzie Guillen,’ I was saying I’ve already been through just about everything a manager can go through.”

So does he have 20 years in him? Guillen laughed at the question. “How old is Bobby Cox, 69?” he said. “I don’t think I’ll live that long. The way my life is, I know I won’t.”

Chicago Blackhawks president John McDonough.
John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

John McDonough left the Cubs to go to the Blackhawks, and there he turned a moribund franchise into just what the Cubs would like to be.
John McDonough believes he remembers when he first started hearing “What’s next?” queries.

Game officials were rummaging in the net for the puck Patrick Kane slipped past Flyers goaltender Michael Leighton on a Wednesday night in Philadelphia six weeks ago. Had young Kane scored a Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Blackhawks?

The puck’s presence in the corner of net confirmed that he had, although the officials and the goal judge missed it at first. So the red light never went on, never acknowledged the completion of the Hawks’ stunning transformation from moribund, sad-sack stragglers to N.H.L. champions. Giddy Chicago has not stopped celebrating. The party continues this weekend with Hawks Fest at the downtown Hilton.

What’s next? McDonough, the team president and convention creator, will be toasted (again) as the overseer of that transformation, in marked contrast to last year, when the previous week’s demotion of general manager Dale Tallon had party-goers in a surly mood. Tallon, the roster’s architect, was a Hawks lifer. McDonough was the target of the fans’ ire, booed “for probably the first time in my life,” he said. “That was a very tough decision. But I made it clear that it was my decision, and whatever direction this franchise was headed in moving forward, it was on me.”

Winning a Stanley Cup soothed the hardest feelings. But even as the treasure was touring Chicago watering holes, the Hawks began reshaping their cup-winning roster, tacitly affirming that Tallon didn’t understand the salary cap, and why he had to go.

“In a perfect world, you’d like to try it again with the same group,” McDonough said. “But a hard salary cap is not a perfect world.”

What’s next? Charismatic goal-scorers Dustin Byfuglien and Kris Versteeg and a line or two full of useful contributors will not be part of the cup defense, so one of the league’s youngest teams will be even younger.

“I don’t mind it when the waters are stirred a little,” McDonough said. “It means there’s something going on.”

Such as ordering Stanley Cup rings for everyone in the organization, ambassadors to interns. “I’m staying out of that,” McDonough said. “I don’t have a rich history with rings.”

Not after 24 jewelry-free years with the Cubs.

McDonough’s spacious United Center office affords him a nice view of the Chicago skyline. The city is in his soul, so he’s in a good place. The closest he has come to a “Holy, um, Cow” moment was on his day with the cup. He took it home to his Edison Park neighborhood for a parade, and the joy on the faces of the people he’d grown up with validated his decision to leave the Cubs for the Blackhawks in November 2007.

He rolled the dice, giving up the presidency of a popular franchise he had helped shape to take over the city’s most forlorn one. “A career counselor would not have advised it, but I had to reinvent myself,” McDonough said.

On June 13 the Hawks took the cup to Wrigley Field for Game.3 of the Cubs-Sox series. Until Ted Lilly and Gavin Floyd combined for 15 no-hit innings, McDonough was the star. Former colleagues lined up for handshakes and hugs. Hawks Captain Jonathan Toews was assigned ceremonial first-ball duties, but he deferred to McDonough, recognizing 24 years of distinguished service.

“That was my life,” McDonough said quietly.

As he stood on the mound, McDonough represented the shifting sands beneath two franchises that have defined his career. Bad, sad and irrelevant four years ago, the Hawks have become what the Cubs would like to be: champions, yes, but also a classy, smooth-running operation, exuding competence and confidence. Tom Ricketts had to notice.

McDonough gets it. He’s a sports guy, and he knows what selling sports entails. He wasn’t a hockey guy, so he hired Scotty Bowman, the best hockey guy on the planet. Joel Quenneville is the Hawks’ coach because of Bowman’s influence.

As the Cubs prepare to hire yet another manager, who is Tom Ricketts’s Scotty Bowman? Who is his John McDonough? The noodle guy?

What’s next, John McDonough? He has heard talk that he’s in line to succeed Gary Bettman as National Hockey League commissioner, on the premise that his operational savvy could elevate an entire league the way it has the Blackhawks. McDonough dismisses the talk as “speculation.”

“It’s flattering, but there isn’t any substance to it,” he said.

McDonough knows Ricketts and figures he would have heard from him if the Cubs owner had any interest. He isn’t waiting by the phone.

“Rocky Wirtz is a very generous owner, a great owner, and I love working for him. We know who we are, and we know where we were. We won a Stanley Cup, but we aren’t finished.”

“I can’t imagine doing anything else,” he added. “I still want to see that red light come on.”

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Iowa Cubs manager Ryne Sandberg heads to the club house before the season opener at Principal Park.
Justin Hayworth/Des Moines Register

DES MOINES, IOWA — Ryne Sandberg might be the only Hall of Famer managing a minor league baseball team, but there’s nothing ceremonial about the position.

Several hours before a game against the New Orleans Zephyrs last week, Sandberg was on the field at Principal Park with his Iowa Cubs under a baking sun. He offered footwork tips to a group of infielders as Frankie Font, the Cubs’ roving minor league infield instructor, put them through agility work. He hit grounders and fly balls during pregame drills. He took a turn pitching batting practice, all while conversing, advising, teaching.

Now 50, Sandberg was clearly in his element. Trim, tan and fit, he looked as natural in a uniform as he did when he won the most valuable player award as the Cubs’ 24-year-old second baseman in 1984. If he had needed to last week, he probably could have grabbed a bat and whacked a double into the gap in right-center field, then ranged into short right field to take a single away from an opposing hitter.

Ryne Sandberg was a baseball purist as a player. He approaches managing with the same commitment, and without any assurances.

“I consider myself one of the guys in the minor leagues,” he said during an interview. “We’re a team, and I’m part of it. You get what you earn in this game. I’ve always believed that.”

Sandberg’s retired No. 23 hangs from the right-field foul pole at Wrigley Field. He remains one of the most popular Cubs in franchise history, but the concept of him managing is a stretch to some, even after four years. He was notoriously guarded as a player, much more comfortable playing the game than talking about it or, heaven forbid, himself.

But a remarkable transformation occurred when Sandberg was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2005. He decided he had something to say about the state of baseball. His induction speech at Cooperstown was a passionate condemnation of steroid cheats and a call for a return to playing the game the right way, the way he had been taught to play it.

“I couldn’t even watch baseball for a few years there,” Sandberg said.

He was hailed as a statesman — an unlikely one, given his quiet demeanor — for confronting one of baseball’s most vexing problems head-on. The response encouraged him to return to the game, to “give back” by teaching the style of play and the values he learned coming up.

He approached Cubs General Manager Jim Hendry when the Cubs released Dusty Baker after the 2006 season but was told he lacked the experience to manage a big league club. So he filed away his Hall of Fame resume and headed for the minor leagues: two years in Class-A with Peoria, a year in Double-A at Tennessee, now the Triple-A Iowa Cubs. He would be a heartbeat away from a big league dugout if it worked that way in baseball.

Iowa Cubs manager Ryne Sandberg talks with reporters during media day.
Rodney White/Des Moines Register

But Lou Piniella is in the final year of his contract and clearly not enjoying himself as the Cubs struggle. In serving his minor league apprenticeship, Sandberg has won, and he has developed players. He was the biggest name in Chicago baseball when Tom Ricketts and his siblings arrived in town from Omaha and embraced the Cubs. It might be his time. And why not? He has experience to go along with his pedigree. And the Cubs surely need fresh energy.

“I’m pleasantly shocked by how much I’ve enjoyed it,” Sandberg said. “That first year, it seemed like a pretty fast game and I was a little overwhelmed, but I think I’ve caught up. I had pretty good instincts as a player, and that helps. A lot of it is knowing your players, what they can and can’t do. And being aggressive. I’m going to try to make things happen to win a game, not sit around and wait for it.”

It isn’t lost on the Cubs that three of their best young prospects — shortstop Starlin Castro, outfielder Tyler Colvin and pitcher Andrew Cashner — are in the big leagues after playing for Sandberg last season. “He’s doing great,” said Oneri Fleita, the Cubs’ vice president for player personnel. “His job is more about player development than wins and losses, getting guys ready for the big leagues. We’re doing a better job of that throughout the system. That’s a tribute to all our development people, Ryno included.”

Iowa second baseman Bobby Scales has played for more than a dozen managers during his 12 professional seasons, none he enjoyed more than Sandberg.

“He has so much knowledge you’d be an idiot if you didn’t listen to him or go to him, but he listens to us, too,” Scales said. “He’s a Hall of Famer, but he’s totally approachable. He’s just Ryno, my skipper. I love playing for him.”

Sandberg doesn’t ponder the possibility of being summoned to Wrigley Field if and when Piniella heads home to Tampa. And he hasn’t given any thought to why the last three Cubs managers have failed despite sterling resumes. Is it an undoable job?

“That’s a tough one to answer,” Sandberg said. “It’s the one thing that hasn’t been accomplished, and the pressure is greater than ever because it’s probably the longest drought in sports. The Red Sox have won, the White Sox, even the Blackhawks. If there’s a formula, it’s having the right people, a mix of young guys who are hungry to prove themselves in the big leagues and older guys who feed off that energy.”

Sandberg considers himself a lifetime Cub, but there are other teams, some with managerial openings.

“If another team thought I deserved an opportunity, I’d definitely be interested,” he said. “We’re just like the players. Everybody down here is trying to get to the big leagues.”

The Bulls came away with Carlos Boozer, who is more than a generous parting gift.

The Nets’ all-in commitment to the LeBron James Derby was even riskier than the Bulls’—New Jersey won 12 games last season. Prospects for immediate improvement lie with Outlaw and top draft pick Derrick Favors, a 19-year-old who averaged 12 points and eight rebounds over his 36-game college career. Twenty wins might be doable. Get those lottery balls ready.

In Chicago we wonder about the Ricketts family and buyers’ remorse over their purchase of the Cubs. You think Russian oil gazillionaire Mikhail Prokhorov views his multimillion-dollar acquisition of the Nets as money well spent?

And he’s stuck in New Jersey for at least two more years.

The Bulls aimed as high as they could, pursuing hometown kid Dwyane Wade even more ardently than James and figuring Chris Bosh might tag along if they landed either one. Didn’t happen, as we know. This was not a hapless settling for Ron Mercer after courting Tracy McGrady and Grant Hill, but the Bulls went out of their way to defend themselves anyway, issuing a statement insisting they had done all they could well before the first No. 23 James jersey was set aflame in used-and-abused Cleveland.

James was never coming, and never mind his declaration of love for Chicago and his admiration for the Bulls’ young talent. All a tease, designed to create the largest possible market for the LeBron brand and generate buzz over “The Decision,” for which ESPN ought to be ashamed, if it were capable of embarrassment. James’ camp did an amazingly brazen job of manipulating the process and every gullible soul involved in it. The NBA was a bigger story in the normally dead month of July than it was in June, when its championship was being decided.

The Bulls believed Wade’s native-son heritage and his family ties to Chicago gave them a shot at him, but it was hard to envision Wade leaving South Florida—he has succeeded Dan Marino as the region’s No. 1 sports hero and he loves living there, for all sorts of reasons. The Heat could pay him roughly $30 million more under NBA rules governing free agency, too. That probably mattered some.

Maybe the Bulls will come to regret trading Kirk Hinrich and their first-round draft pick to Washington for more cap space than they wound up needing. But if you think of it as a Hinrich-for-Boozer deal, it’s a move you probably make.

There are questions about Boozer’s durability—he has missed 30 or more games in three of his eight pro seasons and played in more than 75 just four times. And he doesn’t instinctively assume a defensive stance when he walks into the gym, which probably won’t endear him to new coach Tom Thibodeau, who sees defensive rotations in his sleep and whose cell-phone ring tone is said to be the “dee-fense” chant heard in gyms all over America.

But Boozer, 28, gives the Bulls a legitimate low-post presence on offense, something they haven’t had since, I don’t know, Artis Gilmore?

Boozer, long and strong at 6-foot-9 and 260 pounds, averaged 19.5 points and 11.2 rebounds while shooting 56.2 percent from the floor for the Utah Jazz last season. He was one of only 10 NBA players to average a double-double, and he has done so for his entire career: 17.2 points, 10.2 rebounds per game. The Bulls haven’t had that kind of production from a frontcourt player since Elton Brand, but who needed him?

Putting Boozer on the floor with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah and Luol Deng gives the Bulls about a 42-win nucleus. Adding a spread-the-court shooter to create operating room for Boozer and driving lanes for Rose and Deng is now their top priority. Ben Gordon would be ideal, but that ship has sailed northward, to Detroit. With Mike Miller having joined the migration to Miami, fellow members of the Shooters Union such as Kyle Korver, J.J. Redick and Anthony Morrow are about to become wealthy men because several teams are desperate to restock rosters they gutted in order to pursue this once-in-a-lifetime free-agent class.

The Knicks, for example—they spent the better part of two years getting ready for it. Amare Stoudemire is their centerpiece acquisition; he’s a year younger and maybe a bit more versatile than Boozer, but he plays on a fragile knee, and he’s about to learn that life without Steve Nash involves fewer scoring opportunities.

LeBron? Not sure he merits the total evisceration Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert performed in an open letter to Cavs fans, lambasting James as an ungrateful fraud (among other things) and accusing him of lying down against Boston in the playoffs. Considering how his ego and self-importance drove this business, it’s hard to imagine King James accepting a subservient role to Wade in Miami. But he didn’t get it done in Cleveland, and he didn’t want to try matching the standards of the man whose statue sits outside the United Center, so maybe he never quite was what he seemed.

Or what we in the media made him out to be.

When he wasn’t smoking doubles all over U.S. Cellular Field, he was reaching the seats — 43 of his 102 hits went for extra bases, including 14 home runs. He drove in 63 runs in 378 at-bats, which projects to 102 runs batted in over a full season. If he wasn’t Joe Crede at third base, he was certainly adequate in the field as he made the transition from shortstop.

At 22, less than a year removed from the College World Series, Beckham had “ballplayer” written all over him. He never seemed overmatched by the big-league environment. One scout called him the best young player to hit town since Ryne Sandberg’s 1982 debut with the Cubs. Beckham’s fellow players voted him the American League’s top rookie.

Now Beckham, 23, is discovering that the game is not as easy as he had made it look in his first season.

There has been another position switch, but he discounts its impact. Beckham is an athlete, with the hands and the range to play an excellent second base.

At the plate, however, he looks like a different player. Those scorching line drives that consistently found gaps last year have turned into lazy fly balls. Strikeouts have piled up at an unacceptable rate. After struggling to keep his average north of .200, Beckham took a seat on the bench this week as Brent Lillibridge got a look at second base and went 4 for 10 in three starts.

“I’m not punishing Beckham,” Manager Ozzie Guillen said. “He’s still a big part of this ball club and he’s going to be a big part of it. But the way Lillibridge is swinging the bat, he deserves to be in there. My job is to go with the team that gives us the best chance to win, and right now it’s Lillibridge.”

The Dodgers’ scouting manual used to have a chapter on “the good face,” loosely defined as a calm, clear-eyed, square-jawed bearing that bespoke confidence but stopped short of cockiness. Gordon Beckham has the good face. Shortstop in baseball, quarterback in football, point guard in basketball — athletic success seems rooted in his DNA. The concept of failure is so foreign to him that he has a hard time discussing it, even as it ties him in knots.

“It is what it is — I’m not having the year I expected to have or they need me to have, but I can’t get down,” Beckham said this week as he cooled off in the dugout after taking extra fielding practice in 90-degree heat hours before a game. “You can’t dwell on what’s not happening. You still have to play the game, do your job and help the team even if you’re not getting the results you want at the plate.”

Steve Stone, the Sox’s TV analyst and a former big-league pitcher, believes pitchers have identified Beckham’s strengths and adjusted accordingly.

“He’s not seeing those waist-high fastballs he drove all over the park last year,” Stone said. “Now it’s, ‘Let’s see if he can hit a face-high fastball.’ That’s a tough pitch to lay off, and tougher to do anything with.”

Beckham isn’t sure that’s the case. “I don’t know if they’re pitching me any different,” he said. “I just know I’ve been missing pitches I should be hitting, all year.”

Paul Konerko, the Sox’s 34-year-old team captain, empathizes with Beckham, having endured some rough patches during his 12-year career in the majors. He believes Beckham’s rapid rise skipped over a critical psychological stage of the development process.

“Most of us, I wouldn’t say we learned how to fail in the minor leagues, but we learned how to deal with failure,” Konerko said. “Gordon got here so quick he didn’t have an opportunity to do that. He’s learning to deal with failure at the major-league level, and that’s a lot harder because everything is magnified. But he’s hanging in there. He’s a confident guy, and he’s kept a good attitude.”

White Sox hitting coach Greg Walker believes Beckham’s problem is “between his ears.”

“There’s nothing wrong with his mechanics — he keeps it simple,” Walker said. “But he’s trying to do too much with each at-bat and get it all back at once.”

Beckham has to learn patience, which is as important to a hitter’s development as pitch recognition and a quick bat. Walker cites Carlos Quentin, whose re-emergence as a slugger has been the impetus for the Sox’s charge into contention in the division.

“It looked pretty easy for Carlos in ’08, then he got hurt and started scuffling,” Walker said. “He finally made up his mind that he was too good a hitter to hit the way he’d been hitting. All of a sudden he started driving the ball, and he’s been our hottest hitter.”

No one associated with the Sox has given up on Beckham, least of all Beckham. The memories of 2009 are too fresh — he was the best player on the team and he hasn’t lost it overnight. “I’m frustrated, but I’m not down,” he said. “I’m learning from this. This is when it started falling into place for me last year.” Beckham will come out of it. He has too much talent to fail, and mental toughness to match.

Kraft is using a giant noodle to advertise outside Wrigley Field.
Jose More/Chicago News Cooperative

The Toyota sign is finally up, an obvious yet unobtrusive sentry standing watch above the left-field bleachers at Wrigley Field. That, folks, is a revenue stream.

The noodle? What a cute addition to the festival-like atmosphere along Clark Street. People of all ages are lining up to have their pictures taken with it, as if it were the Stanley Cup or something.

World Series trophy? Uh, try eight miles to the south.

In time, maybe people will pay for the privilege of snapping those photos, just as Kraft, the noodle’s corporate parent, is paying to have the u-shaped yellow thing sit outside the ballpark.

And the taped rock music that has replaced live organ snippets as Cubs hitters approach the batter’s box? Inspired. Much more appropriate to the task at hand. Probably worth something to the performers whose music has been chosen, don’t you think?

Yep, Year.1 of Ricketts family Cubs ownership is off to a smashing start at Clark and Addison. Never mind that the team is mired in mediocrity, stuck in the middle of a middling division, its best players underperforming, its ace pitcher auditioning for Jerry Springer. There are more empty seats than the recent norm at Chicago’s No..1 sports funhouse, and some of the rooftop owners along Waveland and Sheffield Avenues are behind in their payments. But let’s get this party started.

I know, maybe that criticism doesn’t seem entirely fair: The bloated contracts, the aging roster, the ancient ballpark — Tom Ricketts and his siblings inherited those problems from previous ownership, which made several misguided moves to inflate the Cubs’ value (hello, Al Soriano) once the decision was made to sell. Nine months into Year.1, Ricketts is still trying to figure out where the executive trough is located, never mind what’s in Carlos Zambrano’s head.

But it’s not too early to be sure you’re sending the right message, emphasizing the right priorities.

That “way of life” marketing campaign? Smarmy. Most Cubs fans have not experienced a World Series in their lifetime, as we know. The team has won one postseason series since 1908. Yet the fan base remains astonishingly loyal: The Cubs will draw three million customers and play to roughly 98 percent of Wrigley capacity for the seventh straight season. They’ll exceed two million in paid attendance for the 15th straight year.

These true-believing, long-suffering dupes need to be told that being a Cubs fan is a way of life? Don’t insult their baseball intelligence. They probably also understand nine innings, four balls, three strikes and three outs.

More food options, cleaner restrooms, ballpark “ambassadors” to answer questions — fine, fan-friendly ideas. And the mural-sized pictures of the ballplayers lining the concourse are a vivid reminder of where you are, if you need one.

But isn’t it like mowing the lawn or painting the porch of a collapsing house? The on-field product — the team — is what matters most to true Cubs fans, and it’s not exactly in robust shape. Again, that’s not the Rickettses’ fault, but it is their problem. And it’s not going to be an easy one to fix.

Zambrano has to go, even if it means eating a substantial part of the $45 million left on his contract. He can never again be part of a team he so willfully embarrassed with his tantrum, and he has too many priors to suggest that last week’s behavior was an aberration. Worse, he has done nothing to justify the staff-ace stature that was conferred upon him with the five-year, $91.5 million contract he signed in 2007.

Get what you can for him; he’s only 29 and he might bring something. Move him regardless. You’re better off without him.

You’re probably stuck with Soriano, who is what he is: a .280-ish hitter with streaky power, a mere hint of his former speed and a defensive liability. And at 34, he’s not changing. He might have some value as an American League designated hitter, but not at $18 million a year.

Nobody expects Aramis Ramirez to muddle along at .173; he hit some balls hard in the White Sox series and his eerily quiet bat showed signs of life. But Ramirez has played in 150 games in a season only once since 2003. He has been on the disabled list in four of the last five years and suddenly looks older than his listed 32. His days as a cornerstone player might be behind him.

Sadly, that may be true of Derrek Lee as well. A pro’s pro on and off the field, Lee has had slow starts before. But 79 games and a calendar that says July represent more than a start. Lee turns 35 in September, and lots of years with lots of games might be catching up with him.

That’s your Cubs core, $64.54 million of a $143 million payroll. Add Kosuke Fukudome’s salary, and it’s $77.54 million, more than half. For a fourth-place, going-nowhere team that Bob Brenly, the TV analyst, describes as lifeless, dead to the world.

Rookies Starlin Castro, Tyler Colvin and Andrew Cashner clearly are the future, and Cubs fans can only hope there’s more young talent on the way.

Meanwhile, enjoy the noodle.

True, the coveted BP Cup had already been lost, awarded to the White Sox by virtue of their four wins in the first five games of the series. But the stakes were considerable nonetheless—in avoiding a sweep, the Cubs ended the Sox’s winning streak at 11 games, their longest since a 12-gamer in 1961. The North Siders managed not to fall a season-worst 11 games under .500 while keeping their deficit in the N.L. Central in single digits, albeit a daunting 8 ½ games with 87 remaining.

Most important, the performance diverted attention from the Carlos Zambrano soap opera for at least a day. Fittingly, the postgame talk was of Ryan Dempster’s gut-check pitching–seven innings and 122 pitches in strength-sapping humidity—of the slick-fielding play at shortstop by Starlin Castro and Alexei Ramirez, and of rookie Tyler Colvin’s 3-for-5, four-RBI day at the plate.

The White Sox, playing with a confidence befitting the hottest team in baseball, weren’t about to surrender their streak without an argument. Taking advantage of Carlos Marmol’s wildness, they pushed three runs across in the ninth inning and got the winning run to the plate against the Cubs’ closer as the remnants of a sellout crowd of 39,682 implored them to pull it out.

But Marmol slipped a third strike past Alex Rios to end the game with Sox runners at first and second. The sound of manager Lou Piniella exhaling was audible all the way to Wrigleyville.

“Dempster did a heck of a job, Colvin had a big day, we swung the bats well—we won a ballgame and we’re pleased,” Piniella said. “We played two good ballgames the last two days. We had some energy and we played well against a very hot team. Now let’s see if we can go back to Wrigley Field and keep it going.”

Dempster (6-6) wasn’t great, touched for nine hits, two first-inning runs and Paul Konerko’s 20th homer in the sixth. But the Cubs’ most prolific offensive output since June 9—eight runs, 14 hits—left him some margin for error.

“I didn’t think Dempster would last three innings,” Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. “All of a sudden he turned it around and pitched very well. That’s the type of guy he is.”

Dempster gave the scuffling Cubs the type of performance they sought from Zambrano in Friday’s series opener, and everyone in the park knew the results of that assignment.

“I don’t believe in negative energy,” Dempster said. “I had a job to do, and I just tried to make my pitches. Everybody on that team is swinging the bat, especially Paulie. Fortunately he hit a solo [homer]. That’s not going to hurt you too bad.”

Colvin erased the Cubs’ 2-0 deficit with a three-run homer off loser John Danks in the third inning. He had an RBI single off Randy Williams, another left-hander, in the eighth. The 24-year-old outfielder is hitting .298 with 10 homers and 27 RBIs in just 135 at-bats, and the need to play him more becomes more obvious every time he steps to the plate.

“Once he gets a good recognition of the strike zone … I’ll tell you what, the ball just jumps off his bat,” Piniella said. “I got him some experience and we’re using him more now. He’s a confident kid, and that’s a big part of it.”

Geovany Soto had three hits, Starlin Castro and Derrek Lee had two apiece, Lee drove in two runs and Alfonso Soriano hit his 11th home run as the Cubs’ slumbering bats finally showed signs of life. They went 8-10 against the interleague portion of their schedule, dropping four of six to the White Sox.

“We need offense,” Piniella said. “Whoever swings the bat will be in the lineup.”

Danks had a rough outing for the Sox, touched up for six runs and seven hits. He needed 95 pitches to get through five innings, falling behind hitters and laboring in the heat .

“Johnny wasn’t sharp,” Guillen said.

The Sox remained 1 ½ games behind the Twins in the A.L. Central. They’re off to Kansas City and Texas this week to resume American League play after a 15-3 pillaging of the National League in interleague competition. And they were philosophical about the inevitable end of their longest winning streak in 49 years.

“It was enjoyable—guys are having more fun now,” Guillen said. “We played very well. We pitched well and we had good clutch hitting. Today was another example—we played to the last pitch.

“It shows the type of ballclub we can be. We have to keep playing like this for the rest of the year.”

Cubs manager Lou Piniella called a clear-the-air team meeting before Game 5 of the City Series, hoping the air around his gasping and wheezing club wasn’t irretrievably fouled by the Friday dugout tantrum that resulted in an indefinite suspension for Zambrano.

“It was constructive,” Piniella said. “We needed a meeting at this time.”

More than that they needed some help against the White Sox, who stretched their winning streak to 11 with a 3-2 victory, their fourth in five games against the Cubs this year. Paul Konerko’s 19th home run of the season broke a 2-2 tie in the eighth inning and the Sox turned a crisp third-to-second-to first double play to end it before 39,479 well entertained fans on a gorgeous summer evening.

“These are the most fun games you play in all year if you don’t make the playoffs,” Konerko said after turning around a 98-mph heater from Cubs rookie Andrew Cashner on a 1-2 pitch.

“Paulie’s a professional hitter,“ Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said. “He’s very confident, very relaxed. That’s why he has good at-bats in pressure situations.”

Konerko had taken an awkward flail at Cashner’s 1-1 pitch, also a fastball.

“He made me look bad on the pitch before, so if I was pitching I’d have come back with the same thing,” he said. “When a guy is throwing 98, you don’t have much time to think about it.”

The Sox’s longest winning streak since a 12-gamer in 1961 enabled them to hoist the coveted BP Cup, a marketing ploy designed to recognize the winner of the City Series.

“We had Omar [Vizquel] accept it because he’s the oldest guy on the team who hasn’t won the cup,” Konerko said. The trophy, he added, might carry more significance “if the Hawks hadn’t won the Stanley Cup, and if it weren’t for the oil spill.”

Guillen said he hoped each member of the Sox “would get to spend a day with the cup.”

The Sox’s good cheer is understandable—they’ve barged into contention with 15 wins in their last 16 games. Their formula is tried-and-true baseball: solid pitching, exemplary fielding and timely hitting. Freddy Garcia gave them seven strong innings Saturday, then turned it over to J.J. Putz and Matt Thornton, who was called on to close it with Bobby Jenks away on a family matter.

“Freddy, Freddy, Freddy—amazing,” Guillen said. “I never thought we’d get this from him. But he likes to pitch in big games. He likes to show people how good he is.”

The Sox didn’t exactly pound the ball, mustering just four hits off Carlos Silva and Cashner. Outside of Konerko’s blast, the most timely hit was Alex Rio’s two-out single in the third, which scored Gordon Beckham after he led off the inning by scalding a triple to right-center field but stayed at third as Silva retired Juan Pierre and Vizquel.

The M.I.A. middle of the Cubs’ order produced both their runs, Derrek Lee delivering an RBI single in the sixth and Aramis Ramirez tying the game with a long home run to right-center off Garcia in the seventh.

“Good ballgame,” Piniella said. “Well-pitched game. We played with intensity and we played the game well. Silva gave us six good innings before he cramped up and Cashner threw the ball well. Tip your cap to Konerko. He’s a good hitter, and he hit a good fastball out of the park.”

Piniella has been a fire-breather for much of his baseball life, not unfamiliar with the concept of Zambrano-like tantrums. Some of his managerial eruptions have seemed calculated, designed to inject life into a moribund ballclub, and TV analyst Bob Brenly’s recent characterization of the Cubs as a “dead-ass team” may have been on Piniella’s mind when he hobbled out for a word with home-plate umpire Bill Hohn after Carlos Quentin was awarded first base on a questionable hit-by-pitch ruling in the second inning.

Lou’s protest was mild, certainly not vigorous enough to get him tossed, so he was around to witness the crackling good ballgame that followed.

“”We’re like six or seven games under .500 in one-run games,” Piniella said. “It’s no fun losing like that. It’s definitely something we have to improve on.”

The length of Zambrano’s suspension is still to be determined. No one from the Cubs had heard from him since Piniella sent him home on Friday, but Guillen had; the Venezuelan countrymen are friends and met for dinner Friday night as planned.

“I told Carlos he should apologize,” Guillen said. “Face it like a man. Don’t turn your back on this problem. He didn’t kill anyone, he just made one mistake. When you face it like a man and admit you were wrong, people move on.”

The Cubs wish Zambrano had spent a more introspective evening at home rather than “be out yukking it up at dinner,” as assistant general manager Randy Bush put it. But at this point they can’t be surprised by anything the oddly wired pitcher does.

Piniella said Zambrano will be used in the bullpen if and when he returns, with Tom Gorzelanny moving into the rotation. Zambrano’s behavior, coupled with a year’s worth of mediocre pitching, might be the biggest and most obvious problem confronting the Cubs, but it’s hardly the only one. They’re 10 games under .500 and fading fast.

Carlos Zambrano likes to think of himself as a Cy Young Award-capable pitcher, and for the $17.85 million they’re paying him this season, the Cubs are entitled to expect results along those lines.

Not Friday. Zambrano may have reached a new low in senselessly combustible behavior when he lasted just one inning against the White Sox as the second round of the City Series got under way at U.S. Cellular Field. He gave up two doubles, a single and a home run to four of the first five batters he faced and trailed 4-0 after throwing 12 pitches.

When the inning finally ended, he stormed into the dugout and flung the contents of a water cooler onto the field. Then he initiated an angry exchange with Derrek Lee over the first baseman’s perceived failure to flag down Juan Pierre’s ground-ball double down the first-base line, which initiated the Sox’s big inning.

Manager Lou Piniella and pitching coach Larry Rothschild got between the two physically imposing heavyweights, and Zambrano took a seat on the bench. After Lee, Aramis Ramirez and Alfonso Soriano struck out in an anemic response to the Sox’s four-spot, Zambrano disappeared into the clubhouse, through for the day. So were the Cubs.

Their dysfunction overshadowed the White Sox’s 10th straight victory, a no-sweat, 6-0 romp that featured Jake Peavy’s seven innings of three-hit, nine-strikeout pitching and Carlos Quentin’s fourth home run in 11 games, a three-run first-inning blast that sent Zambrano over the edge.

Afterwards, the Cubs announced an indefinite suspension.

“His conduct was unacceptable toward his teammates and the staff,” general manager Jim Hendry said. “This merits severe discipline beyond ‘you can’t come to the park tomorrow.’ You’re not allowed to replace a guy who’s under suspension, but we’ll play with 24 before we tolerate that kind of behavior.”

Mired in season-long mediocrity with June fading fast, the Cubs needed to kick-start themselves just the way the White Sox did by taking two of three in Round 1 of the City Series at Wrigley Field two weeks ago. They also could have used some innings out of their starter after going through their bullpen in Thursday’s 13-inning marathon at Seattle. The park was full, the stage was set and the chance was there, and Zambrano went Milton Bradley on them.

“I sent him home,” Piniella said. “He was ranting and raving, out of control. Unacceptable behavior.

“He was upset that some of our players didn’t dive for those balls in the first inning. We were pinching in on Pierre because he likes to bunt and bring it with him. The other two balls were hard-hit. Quentin’s was a two-strike homer into the seats that nobody was going to catch. That’s what I thought he was upset about—giving up a three-run homer on a two-strike pitch. But the further he got into his tirade, the more out of control he was.”

The attack on Lee was inappropriate and offensive. The 35-year-old warhorse is not having one of his better years, at the plate or in the field, but he remains a pro’s pro, one who has saved his fielders dozens of errors and his pitchers dozens of runs over the years with his adept glove work at first base, not to mention his consistently productive hitting.

Then again, Zambrano has a history of contentious behavior toward teammates—he punched out his catcher, Michael Barrett, in the clubhouse after one memorably volatile dugout disagreement in 2007. He has also vented his frustrations on water coolers, Gatorade dispensers, umpires, Jim Edmonds … whatever happens to be handy when things aren’t going his way.

But the “Big Z” antics stopped being amusing years ago—he’s 29 now. Despite signing a five-year, $90.5 million contract in 2008 that makes him one of the highest paid pitchers in baseball, Zambrano refuses to grow up. He clearly crossed a line with Friday’s tantrum.

“I’m embarrassed and Carlos should be embarrassed,” Piniella said. “He’s a grown man. He’s got to control his emotions better than that.”

Zambrano isn’t pitching like anything resembling a staff ace, either—3-5 with a 5.66 ERA and fresh off a tour in the bullpen after winning just nine games last year. He’s making $320,915.62 per inning and $5,958,333.30 per win this season.

Neither Hendry nor Piniella would venture a guess as to whether Zambrano has pitched his last game in a Cubs uniform. His contract has two years remaining and will be extremely difficult to move, given his erratic behavior and his declining productivity in recent seasons.

“He’s going to have to apologize to his teammates, that’s for sure,” Piniella said.

Hendry couldn’t estimate the length of the suspension, because the Players Association will intervene to ensure that the collective bargaining process covering discipline is followed. “The rules of the game don’t allow a real long, long-term suspension,” he said.

Would he insist on anger management counseling before Zambrano returns? “A course in Good Teammate 101 would come before that,” Hendry said.

The White Sox have done some pretty lively family feuding of their own this season and seemed almost amused by the Cubs’ meltdown. Hot as the Sox are, it’s easy to give baseball their undivided attention.

As if 10 straight wins and 14 in 15 games isn’t encouraging enough, the Sox got a big game from Gordon Beckham, their second-year second baseman whose season thus far has a three-month struggle after he broke in amid such bright promise last year. Beckham hit his first home run since April 11 in the fifth inning, drove in a second run with a sacrifice fly in the sixth and saved a run with a nice play on Mike Fontenot’s infield single in the seventh.

Manager Ozzie Guillen attributed Beckham’s long overdue success to “good at-bats.”

“Our ballclub is better when Gordon is on the field, there’s no doubt about that,” Guillen said. “He has to know how much I count on him, and how much I want him on the field and to make things easier for him.”

Beckham didn’t get to face Zambrano. Nobody will be facing him for the time being. Now 32-41 and fading, the Cubs might be better off.

Round 2 of the City Series gets under way at U.S. Cellular Field this afternoon, and the Cubs hit the South Side with the barest snippet of momentum. They beat the Mariners 3-2 in a 13-inning marathon in Seattle on Thursday, averting a sweep and avoiding a loss to King Felix Hernandez, the Mariners’ 24-year-old right-handed stylist who is the American League’s version of Ubaldo Jimenez and Steven Strasburg.

Their reward: Three games with the white-hot White Sox, winners of nine straight and 13 out of 14 following Thursday’s 2-0 blanking of the Atlanta Braves on the South Side. Gavin Floyd, J.J. Putz and Bobby Jenks combined on a two-hitter and Paul Konerko slammed a two-run home run in the eighth inning as the Sox completed a three-game sweep of the N.L. East leaders on a postcard-perfect baseball day before 31,076 fans, the largest Cell crowd since Opening Day.

When this torrid stretch began, the Sox were in third place, 9 ½ games behind the first-place Minnesota Twins in the A.L. Central. They enter Friday’s play within 2 ½ games of the division lead, having picked up seven games in two weeks. They haven’t lost since Floyd and Ted Lilly matched no-hit pitching for six-plus innings before the Cubs turned two seventh-inning hits into a run and 1-0 win in Game 3 of the City Series at Wrigley Field on June 13.

“I’m not amazed,” Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen said. I felt like we could play this way ever since spring training. Now that our pitching has shown up, everybody’s starting to believe it. We’re expecting to win, not hoping to.”

Starting pitching can overcome a multitude of baseball sins, and the Sox’s starters have been extraordinary during this hot streak: 11-1 with a 1.97 earned run average. Floyd is only 2-7 for the season and was not involved in Thursday’s decision after he and Braves starter Derek Lowe matched zeroes for seven innings. But Floyd has a 0.93 ERA for his four June starts and has rediscovered the nasty stuff that helped him win 17 games for the Sox as a 25-year-old in 2008.

“I’m letting A.J. [Pierzynski] call the game, and I’m just trying to make my pitches and not worry about results or other things I can’t control,” Floyd said. “If I do that I’ll be fine.”

Floyd allowed a second-inning single to Eric Hinske, then set down 14 Braves in a row before Chipper Jones singled with one out in the seventh. Pitching coach Don Cooper visited the mound after a two-out walk to Troy Glaus, Floyd’s first, brought him to 98 pitches. After assuring Cooper he had enough left to deal with Hinske, Floyd punched him out on five pitches for his ninth strikeout, then turned it over to the bullpen.

“I wish we could have scored earlier and got Gavin the win—he deserved it,” Guillen said. “His last 3-4 starts have been outstanding.”

Takashi Saito took over for Lowe in the Sox’s eighth. Juan Pierre greeted him with a single to left, took second on Alexi Ramirez’s sacrifice and stayed there as Mark Kotsay flied to left. That brought Konerko to the plate. He guessed fastball on Saito’s first pitch and got one, driving it out to left-center field. The crowd erupted and kept the noise going until Konerko emerged from the dugout for a curtain call.

“I figured he’d try to get ahead of me with a fastball, and I was ready,” Konerko said.

With 18 homers, 54 RBIs and a .302 average, Konerko has been the Sox’s most consistent, productive hitter. Two weeks ago the Braves might have pitched around him with first base open, taking their chances with Carlos Quentin. But Quentin has been swinging a hot bat lately—.392, three homers, 10 RBIs in his last eight games—as have Pierzynski (.395 in his last 11 games) and Ramirez (.291 since May 6).

“When Quentin is swinging the bat, it affects every other hitter in the lineup,” Guillen said. “Right now it’s hard to pitch around anybody.”

Jake Peavy, who beat the Cubs at Wrigley on June 11 and is 4-2, 2.11 against them in his career, opposes Carlos Zambrano in Friday’s series opener. Freddy Garcia (8-3) and Carlos Silva (8-2) are Saturday’s scheduled starters, and John Danks (7-5) faces Ryan Dempster (5-6) on Sunday.

The Cubs get a break in missing Floyd and Mark Buehrle, whose 23-6 interleague record is the best in baseball.

It figures. The Sox are 13-2 in interleague play this year, with three games against the Cubs remaining. They might want to petition for a transfer to the National League.