"The Orioles have agreed in principle with former Chicago Cubs and Minnesota Twins executive Andy MacPhail to be the club's next chief operating officer, a baseball official confirmed today," reports the Baltimore Sun. The position appears to be similar to the president's position MacPhail held with the Cubs for twelve years. MacPhail was not able to build a consistent winner on the north side of Chicago. Now, it appears, he will have the opportunity in Baltimore. The Orioles are working on their tenth straight sub-.500 season. Joe Girardi could be the new Orioles' manager. Camden Chat has more.

Subtitled "Inside the Cubs' Quest for October," this is a disappointing book about a disappointing team.

George Castle has served as the Cubs beat reporter for The Times of Northwest Indiana. Entangled in Ivy is less an examination of the disappointment of the Andy MacPhail era as it a autobiography of Castle's coverage of the MacPhail era and his retrospective observations. Which is by no means a bad thing, in and of itself.

Unfortunately, there is little new in this book for longtime followers of the Cubs. Castle does provide a nice overview of the problems of the MacPhail era. He writes of MacPhail's philosophy of trying to be "competitive" rather than trying to win the World Series, the lack of position player development, the lack of hitters' patience at the plate, and a too-small front office team (the Cubs have an assistant general manager -- Randy Bush -- this year for the first time since the Cubs hired MacPhail). In the process, though, Castle puts blame on minor issues. He argues that Wrigley Field is too old to have necessary amenities for the players, and the last few pages of the book are devoted to the supposed perils of day games at Wrigley.

The biggest news always comes out of nowhere. Chicago Cubs president Andy MacPhail has resigned. John McDonough, Cubs senior vice president of marketing and broadcasting, will serve as interim president. MacPhail has been Cubs president for 12 seasons. The Cubs won one division championship (2003) during his tenure and one wild card (1998). They lost at least 94 games 5 times, despite having upper echelon resources.

That lack of success, combined with the pending end of Dusty Baker's 4-year reign as field manager, has led to a recent spate of criticism in the media of MacPhail and those in upper management below him.

The Daily Herald's Bruce Miles has a good article in today's paper on the disappointment of the MacPhail era: "MacPhail era one of unfulfilled promise."