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As it if werent enough that Mike Quade led the Cubs to their first sweep in 137 years, inserted guys with the best OBPs at the top of the lineup, and got Tylermania back in the game, now he's managed to beat the unbeatable Pirates and possibly cure Big z's nephew:.

"I hope the overall picture is taken into account, but I'm not doing the evaluation," he said. "Some of that I'm sure will be in the mix. Look, there are a lot of good baseball people out there and I get a chance to do this in front of people. We're going to try and win every ballgame obviously, and I'm sure wins and losses will be a part of it. To what extent, that's for the people evaluating me to answer."

Quade took a moment to look around the ballpark during the national anthem, thinking about how fortunate he is to have finally reached this position. It has been a long road to Wrigley, but the wait was worth it.

"It's not just about being here," he said. "But it's about where I've been, and I've been damn near everywhere, so this is a pretty good place to end up right now."

Read more: Mike Quade: Great Manager? Or Greatest Manager?

I love Wrigley Field. I do. It's one of my favorite places in the world. I say that to inform you that nothing in this post is out of spite for the venue I revere as a mecca of the baseball world. And as much as I give Cubs fans a hard time, I don't really think they're worse than the fans of any other team. There are some great Cubs fans and some abominable ones just as any fan base is prone to including members from both ends of the spectrum of tolerability.

But the home-field advantage at Wrigley, for the last several decades, has been the worst in all of baseball, and I've got the numbers to prove it.

I started out investigating home-field advantage in general in the hopes of proving something about the significance of psychology in baseball. The first wave of research showed that as far back as I could look (1901) there always has been a home-field advantage league-wide. In every season of Major League Baseball, the home teams have, collectively, registered a winning record. There have been 4 seasons in which the teams of either the National League or the American League had a collective losing record at home, but it has never happened across baseball.

Read more: Wrigley: the Worst Home-Field Advantage in Baseball

Read more: Chiefs Add Ramirez from Boise for Playoff Push

Mike Quade can ride his chariot back to Chicago with his head held high, the owner of a 4-2 managerial record. It looked like the Cubs had a good chance at 5-1 after heroics by Kosuke Fukudome. Unfortunately, Fuky also decided to not be heroic.

Kosuke Fukudome hit a 2-run homer in the top of the eighth inning to tie Sunday's game at 5-5, but a tough throwing error by Fukudome enabled the Reds to score 1 of 2 runs in the bottom of the inning as Cincinnati won to open a 5-game lead over St. Louis in the National League Central.

Read more: Cubs Monday Headlines: Triumphant 4-2 Road Trip Finished

Quade did it his way Wednesday night, lifting Dempster for a pinch-hitter in a scoreless duel against Jason Marquis in the eighth inning. Dempster had thrown only 79 pitches and seemed to be upset.

"He wanted no part of coming out, and he wasn't happy about that," Quade said. "And that's OK. I don't want guys happy (to leave). ... I couldn't live with myself if we're tied in the eighth we don't try and do something to win the game. It wouldn't matter who (is pitching), but it's always more difficult when it's somebody who's giving you a heck of an outing."

Read more: Cubs Thursday Headlines: Cubs Sweep by Nats in Wild Card Race

Allow me to elaborate on my post from yesterday (which came in almost muted reaction to the Chicago magazine article on Sammy). This will require some imagination on your part. When you see Alan Shore, I want you to picture Sammy Sosa. When he talks about the legal profession, I want you to imagine he's talking about baseball. And when he describes Eugene Young and pie and embezzlement and lying, I want you to replace it all by conjuring up thoughts of Jim Hendry and retired numbers and egotism and steroids. If you can do that, you can understand how I feel about how the Cubs treated Sammy Sosa.

If you can't, well, it was worth a shot.

WASHINGTON -- Mike Quade isn't going to pretend he's not auditioning for the Cubs job in 2011.

"I guess," he said. "The thing to say is, 'Oh, no, no, no. But, no, it probably absolutely is. And for me, the thing you've got to be careful about is you've got to do what you've got to do. It's a generic statement, but it really is (true). I know what I've done in the past and how I've gone about it. And I've been around so many good people. You have to be yourself. You just have to approach it and do it my way and whatever happens happens.

"But in some way, shape or form, it absolutely is an audition."

Read more: Tuesday Cubs Headlines: All Quade On The Western Front

Sammy Sosa: Cubs 'Threw Me into the Fire' - Chicago magazine - September 2010 - Chicago