Manager Don Zimmer was sitting in his cramped Wrigley Field office talking about lineup options before a game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 17, 1988.
This was back in an era when managers talked freely with newspaper reporters in their offices before games, knowing they could go off the record on occasion or use off-color language. It was a different time. Nowadays manager Craig Counsell addresses the media in a dark, subterranean conference room with an ever-present TV camera fixed on him to satisfy the team-owned TV network’s pregame show.
Candidness is optional. But I digress. Back on that day in ’88, Zimmer noted the wind would be blowing out at a decent clip for the afternoon game, so he inserted little-used rookie Darrin Jackson into the lineup.
“I just thought Jackson can get a hold of one,” he told reporters. Jackson, who had four career home runs at the time, wound up hitting two home runs in the Cubs’ 6-4 win over the Cardinals. Zimmer was a genius.
“I don’t want to sound like I know everything,” he said afterward. Zimmer wasn’t the first manager to watch the way the wind blows at Wrigley before making out his lineup. And he certainly won’t be the last.
Though most lineups are pre-scripted a day or more in advance based on analytics and rest times, Counsell admitted to looking at the flags when walking into the ballpark. “You think about it, absolutely,” he said Saturday. “Probably just putting your best team on the field trumps .
