ST. LOUIS _ One thing we can all agree on: Joe Maddon is never at a loss for words.
From his shot-and-a-beer introductory news conference at the Cubby Bear in November 2014 to what could be the final game of his Cubs tenure Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium, Maddon will have spent more than 25,000 hours dispensing his wit and wisdom to the Chicago media on a variety of topics, from baseball to bicycling, Twitter to TV sitcoms, from Hazleton, Pa., to hair dye.
He was the undisputed king of the non sequitur, dropping a Ralph Kramden reference or a favorite line from "The Office" into his twice-a-day press gatherings, making them seem more like an episode of "The View" than a question-and-answer session about a baseball game.
That didn't make Maddon a great manager, though he's one of the best in the business. But it did make him a great salesman.
Part of Maddon's job was to sell Cubs baseball to the masses for the team's owners to increase their profits. And other than Harry Caray and Ernie Banks, no one enjoyed selling the Cubs more than Maddon.
If Maddon is gone, as most expect, Chicago will lose a unique voice.
This city embraces its rebels, nonconformists and nut jobs, whether it's a Jim McMahon, John Belushi or Dennis Rodman. If you can do your job at a high level and make us laugh at the same time, you're good for life.
Baseball, after all, really is just another form of entertainment, like Netflix or Lollapalooza. And above all else, Maddon was an entertainer.
He coined T-shirt-ready slogans such as "Try Not to Suck" and frequently invented his own words _ "Karkovice'd," "Garfunkel'd" and "Meat Loaf'd." Even late Friday night, with the clock on his Cubs contract ticking down and his team having snapped a mind-blowing, season-defining nine-game losing streak with an 8-2 victory against the Cardinals, Maddon began his postgame news conference by playing a clip from "Seinfeld" on his laptop to riff off a Robel Garcia home run.
It was so absurd that some of us thought Maddon had lost his marbles before realizing he had no more marbles to lose.
We've been blessed in Chicago the last couple of decades with some of the more engaging, headstrong and quotable managers and coaches in the nation, including Mike Ditka, Phil Jackson, Ozzie Guillen, Dusty Baker, Lou Piniella and Maddon.
They said what they wanted, and if you didn't like it, well, it must suck to be you.
On Thursday night in Pittsburgh, Maddon inadvertently created a stir in Wisconsin by saying he would sit some of his key players _ Anthony Rizzo, Yu Darvish, Kyle Hendricks and others _ for the final series in St. Louis. He knew the decision would upset the Brewers, who are battling the Cardinals for the National League Central Division title.
"Of course they're going to bitch," he said. "But quite frankly, there are certain things I really don't give a (expletive) about, and that would be one of them."
Perhaps other managers in Maddon's position would do the same, but few would admit it, and certainly not with as much gusto.
Maddon, a longtime fan of the sweet science, never pulls his punches.
"You have to come from somewhere," he said. "You have to have a foundation to know what you think. You have to really be convicted with your thoughts and believe what you're saying in order to say that. If you're not, you'll shy away from that thought or that moment or that comment.
"I had no disrespect (to the Brewers) intended. I'm just saying it's about the Cubs and what we do. And I've got to protect my guys, regardless of what anyone else might think."
Maddon said management never told him what not to say, outside of a stint as interim manager with the Angels when he lauded pitcher Chuck Finley as indispensable and general manager Bill Bavasi chided him for hurting the team in contract negotiations.
That wasn't entirely true. After an AC/DC concert in 2015 ripped up the grass at Wrigley Field, Maddon blamed the event a Starlin Castro error and quipped: "Since the AC/DC concert, we've had a little bit of trouble. I don't know if they were out there taking ground balls before the game or if they had nine-inch heels or spikes." But the business operations department complained, citing the revenues the concerts bring in, and Maddon sang a different tune the next day when asked if he had a problem with the field.
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"Zero, zilch, nada," he replied. "It was an attempt at weak humor, so I was guilty of that, and I can be very weak at times."
With the end apparently near, Maddon is absorbing body blows from national pundits who parachute into the Cubs clubhouse a few times a year and pretend to know its pulse. The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal wrote that Maddon should've been let go last year after they lost the wild-card game, harrumphing that "a few ugly days might have spared the Cubs from an ugly season."
Team President Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer barely were mentioned as accessories to the Cubs' collapse. Apparently it was Maddon's "laissez-faire approach" that sank the season, even as it worked for four straight postseason appearances and a World Series title.
Maddon bears much of the blame for 2019. But Epstein's personnel decisions, the lack of clutch hitting, poor baserunning and not having an effective closer were far bigger factors.
The piling on no doubt will continue after Maddon's likely exit. That's the way of the world. It reminds one of a line from a Simon and Garfunkel song, "The Boxer."
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"All lies and jests, still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."
So believe what you want about Maddon. He's a baseball savant to some and a self-promoting fraud to others.
Just remember what things were like on the North Side before Maddon arrived at the Cubby Bear, when the Cubs tried not to suck but usually did.
