Fredi Gonzalez turns down interview for Cubs’ manager job

Fredi Gonzalez is apparently so confident the Braves will choose him as their new manager when Bobby Cox retires at the end of the season that John Hickey of AOL Fanhouse reports he turned down a chance to interview for the open Cubs’ job. Last month I was in Atlanta for the annual Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) convention and Gonzalez was also in attendance. He hung around the hotel and sat in on some presentations. Not coincidentally Cox participated in a Braves panel and former GM and current team president John Schuerholz was the convention’s keynote speaker. All of which struck me as a pretty strong indication that Gonzalez was more or less already in the Braves’ family (or back in, since he was a Braves coach for years) and just waiting his turn to replace Cox at season’s end, particularly since Schuerholz made it very clear at one point that he felt the Marlins made a mistake in firing Gonzalez. Under normal circumstances I’m sure Gonzalez would join Bob Melvin, Ryne Sandberg, Mike Quade, Eric Wedge in going after the Cubs job, but these aren’t normal circumstances. He has a better gig lined up.