Optimistically, about two weeks. Realistically, probably a little longer. Damn. For some reason I thought he was going to be back around the end of this month.
Yeah, calling the Cutler the weak link is absurd. He makes his share of mistakes and dumb decisions, but he's by far the strongest part of the offense.
Nippon-Ham is the company that owns them, since Japanese baseball allows such corporate labeling, so "Fighters" is not their nickname; that's the team name.
I'd be curious to see how/if that could work out for the Cubs. On the one hand you lose the tourist/visiting fan factor. On the other hand you gain a huge suburban market of people who don't want to trek downtown. On the other hand, as soon as you start getting out of the city you start finding more and more fans of neither the White Sox or the Cubs.
How many bench coaches come with the attention and push that Sandberg got in his attempt to become a manager AND his history as a player? It doesn't happen that often, and when it does it usually becomes a pain in the ass (see: Mattingly, Don.)
Why are you so sure that he could? He has a ton of baggage coming with him now. Almost any manager is going to feel added pressure if their team does poorly if Sandberg is on the coaching staff due to the perception that he's trying his damndest to become a manager.