In order to make history, sometimes you’ve gotta do more than just think outside of the box.
In the Cubs’ case, with over 100 years of futility staring the team’s next general manager in the face, the team is going to have to do more than just sacrifice a couple of goats or eradicate the Wrigleyville area of all black cats before the patrons of Cubby Bear and Murphy’s Bleachers can start talking seriously about a World Series championship coming to the North side.
Of course as the old saying goes, the well-behaved are rarely the ones making history. And adhering to conventional wisdom (read: hiring a white male) isn’t going to get Tom Ricketts what he’s promised Cubs fans unless he’s changed his mind and decided that fifth place finishes in the NL Central are a-okay for the forseeable future.
That’s why the right man for the challenge of shepherding the Cubs into the 21st century isn’t a man at all. Rather, it’s the slight, strong-willed Asian woman you see above.
If the Cubs are going to get to the almighty Promised Land, the club is going to have to be the first team to ever place the fate of their franchise in the hands of a woman. That’s right folks, the person to lead them there is none other than Kim Ng.
So why Ng and why now?
When asked what he’s looking for in his next GM, Ricketts told reporters the following:
“I see No. 1 they’ll have to share a commitment to player development, which obviously is the key to consistent success,” he said. “I think we can look for guys that have a little stronger analytical background than maybe some of the guys we have here. Someone who has worked with some of the new tools, that would be a plus. And then someone who’s been in a winning culture and who can bring the lessons of that over and has a track record of success.”
In other words, Ricketts is looking for Ng, currently the Senior Vice President of Operations for Major League Baseball.
You see, Ng’s wedding ring isn’t the only one in her collection. Her resume speaks for itself, a sort of anti-Cubs culture narrative that has been built on the fact that quite frankly, this woman knows exactly where she’s going and how she’s going to get there. Since being named the youngest Assistant General Manager in all of baseball at the ripe old age of 29 (!), Ng has established herself as a winner. She’s been a part of three world champions, all with the Yankees, built six teams that reached the LCS (four with the Yankees, two with the Dodgers) and eight teams that made the postseason.
While she’s always rumored to be among the top candidates for just about any GM spot that comes open, she always seems to get passed over, usually for another up-and-comer, this despite the fact that on paper, she’s among the most qualified for the job anywhere.
She’s extremely bright, a graduate of the University of Chicago where she spent four years on the softball team. She’s proven that she can handle contract negotiatioins against the best agents in the world, including Scott Boras, who she took on in an arbitration case at the ripe old age of 26. She helped revamp the Dodgers farm system into one of the best in the game. And now, she’s currently entrusted with overseeing MLB’s international operations, an area of expertise that will come in handy when draft time rolls around.
It’s a resume that seemingly addresses all of Ricketts’ concerns when it comes to his next GM. Ng doesn’t take guff from anyone when it comes to getting the best bang for the organizational buck in terms of contracts, a trait that is going to come in handy given the Ricketts’ limited funds. She’s a proven winner as stated above, having come of age in the Yankees’ organization where anything less than a World Series title is a massive disappointment. She’s got the player development experience as well, something the Cubs are sorely in need of give the current lackluster shape of their farm system.
Among the other names being tossed about are former Cubs’ Director of Media Relations turned Dodgers GM Ned Colletti, Rays GM Andrew Friedman and White Sox Asst. GM Rick Hahn. Red Sox GM Theo Epstein and Yankees GM Brian Cashman are names currently being bandied about as wish-listers, but neither would be wise to leave his current position to take on the mess that is the Chicago Cubs at present.
Friedman is likely either staying with the Rays or heading to the Astros, where he’d be taking over an even more woeful present situation but a brighter future in terms of the farm system. Colletti and Hahn on the other hand both have ties to the Cubs. Colletti used to work for the team while Hahn reportedly grew up a die-hard Cubs fan in the Chicago suburbs. While both are fantastic baseball men, neither is the right fit for the gig given those two lines on their resume. What this organization needs is someone with a clean slate, absolutely no knowledge of the suffering that has occurred at the corner of Clark and Addison since before nearly literally every single person on the planet was born.
Ng fits that bill, seemingly having been been groomed her entire career for this opportunity. Plus she could be the shot of karmic justice the Cubs need to reverse more than a century’s worth of bad juju, from the meltdown in the ’03 NLCS to the collapse in ’69 to myriad failures in the World Series throughout the 1930s. An organization that has a track record for coloring inside the lines needs to break free from itself in order to eradicate the demons of a century-old culture of losing.
That’s why the right man for this particular job is in fact a woman. After all, the Cubs couldn’t do any worse than someone with her track record, right?
