Steve Stone Feuding With A Cubs Manager. Again.

Lou Pinella has to be under a lot of stress. The big-payroll Cubs are 27-34, eight games out of the lead in the NL Central -- basically, they’re the Cubs.

And now current White Sox broadcaster (and former Cubs color man) Steve Stone is questioning Sweet Lou’s approach to juggling an outfield with Alfonso Soriano, Marlon Byrd, Kosuke Fukudome, Xavier Nady and promising rookie Tyler Colvin. Specifically, Stone suggested the latter should get more playing time.

“You have to stop this idea of being fair to your players. The object is to win,” Stone told Kaplan. “Winning is the key. If you win as a baseball team, everybody’s going to be happy.”

It’s not an altogether bad point; Colvin is batting .298/.358/.596 in 94 at-bats.

In any case, Pinella didn’t take very kindly to Stone’s comments. Actually, he did everything but resume his third-base-throwing routine.

“Steve Stone? He’s got enough problems with what he does with the White Sox,” Piniella said. “What job has he had in baseball besides talking on television or radio? What has he done? Why isn’t he a farm director, and bring some kids around? Why isn’t he a general manager? Why hasn’t he ever put the uniform on and been a pitching coach? Why hasn’t he been a field manager? There’s 30 teams out there that can use a guy’s expertise like that.

“I’m tired of some of these guys, I really am.”

Stone’s response -- “That might be one of the dumber things he’s said” -- was hardly the model of polite rejoinder.

Cubs fans might be having an uneasy flashback to 2004, when Dusty Baker’s highly-anticipated team was in the last throes of coughing up the Wild Card. Stone, then in his second stint as a TV broadcaster for the team, called out the team for making excuses. Both Baker and GM Jim Hendry publicly and critically responded, and Stone eventually resigned.

By then, the Cubs had lost the Wild Card. Two years later, Baker was gone.