Mike Quade Signs, Joe Girardi Cries on the Inside

Rumors have long been running rampant of Yankees manager Joe Girardi jumping ship to go back to his roots (having grown up in nearby Peoria and attended Northwestern University in Evanston) and manage the Chicago Cubs, a team he also played for from 1989-1992 and 2000-2002; making the all star game in 2000 for the only time in his career.

Those rumors were put to bed earlier today when the Cubs took the interim tag off Mike Quade and signed him to a 2 year deal with a club option for a third, according to a report on Cubs.com. Terms were not disclosed. Quade earned the job after leading the Cubs to the second best record in the NL, behind only the Phillies during his time as manager with a 24-13 record after former Cubs manager Lou Piniella retired in August to spend time with his ailing mother. Quade's a a journeyman minor leaguer with 24 years of coaching and managerial experience split between the majors and minors who's name one would not normally associate with Don Baylor, current Reds manager Dusty Baker and Piniella.

With the last three men having failed to lead the Cubs to October glory, the Cubs have decided to try a a different direction in giving Quade the opportunity to manage at the Major League level for the first time.

"Maybe the most important thing for me is I feel good that in spite of believing you could do this and in spite of training to do this, well, guess what? Now I got to do it," said Quade. "I've been comfortable doing it, it's exactly what I thought it would be, it's been fun, it's a challenge. Very seldom does everything you think about take place this way, and it's a tribute to all the people in the Minor Leagues who I've been around that I was this prepared to do it."

Quade taking the Chicago job leaves Micro Joe, as Yankee fans derisively call him, with only one option to manage next season; staying in the Bronx. Even though he will be negotiating with the Yankees, he will only be able to extract so much money out of them in his new deal without being able to pin them up against another team. Hopefully he doesn't over-manage his way out of pinstripes like many have commonly claimed he did down the stretch this season in giving up the AL East to set his rotation for the playoffs.

"I don't know how anybody could've done better than he did," said Aramis Ramirez after the Cubs final game on October 3rd.

A press conference is scheduled at Wrigley for 3PM central time to formally announce Quade's deal.