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David Ross fell asleep by 8 p.m. the night before Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer showed up at his door to fire him. Ross hardly ever goes to bed that early, but his Sunday had been full. He also had no reason to believe he was about to lose his job as Cubs manager.
When Ross awakened at his home in Tallahassee, Fla., he noticed a bunch of missed calls from Hoyer. He had scheduled a Zoom meeting with his coaches for that day, Nov. 6, 2023. He also was in the process of hiring a catching coordinator.
“I was busy working,” Ross said. “I was in the middle of it.”
He called back Hoyer, who asked him, “Are you home?”
Ross said he replied yes.
“Well, I’m at your front door,” Hoyer said.
“I was like, ‘I’m fired,’” Ross recalled.
The Cubs’ dismissal of Ross, coinciding with their signing of Craig Counsell to a record five-year, $40 million contract, was a shocking, humiliating turn for the club’s former backup catcher, who was carried off the field by his teammates after the Cubs won the 2016 World Series.
But two years later, Ross wants to hop right back on the managerial merry-go-round.
“Badly,” he said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “It’s an itch that hasn’t gone away.”
Ross, 48, said he was not called to interview for one of the managerial openings last offseason, when the Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins and Chicago White Sox made changes. This offseason, four jobs (Texas, Minnesota, San Francisco, Los Angeles Angels) already are open. Three more (Baltimore, Washington, Colorado) could become available if those teams decline to retain their interims. At least two others (Atlanta, Houston) also might be in play.
Ross is not the only former manager seeking a new opportunity. Former Miami manager Skip Schumaker is the leading candidate to replace Bruce Bochy in Texas. Rocco Baldelli, fired by the Twins, might get calls. And all four managers fired during the regular season – Colorado’s Bud Black, Baltimore’s Brandon Hyde, Washington’s Davey Martinez and Pittsburgh’s Derek Shelton – told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale they want another chance.
The Cubs hired Ross after the 2019 season even though he had no previous coaching or managing experience. Ross took over for Joe Maddon, who five years earlier replaced Rick Renteria in a prior example of the Cubs dumping a first-time manager for a more experienced, accomplished hand.
In four seasons, starting with the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, Ross’ record was 262-284. During that period, though, the Cubs mostly were rebuilding. And in Ross’ final season, the team finished 83-79, staying in contention until the final weekend after falling 10 games under .500 in June.
“It didn’t feel like my job was in jeopardy at any time,” Ross said. “It never even entered my mind.”
Ross said he still roots for his former Cubs players, Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki, to name a few. His firing, he said, “gets in my craw once in a while.” When asked if he was upset with Counsell for taking his job, he initially laughed, unsure how to answer.
“It’s a good question. I battle it all the time, go back and forth on that,” Ross said. “You feel like you’re a part of this special fraternity of managers. But he also got offered $8 million (a year) for five years, you know?
“The way it went down sucked. I’ve had so many people say the same thing . . . about how I got screwed. I don’t look at it like that. But a lot of people like it a lot less than me. I don’t know where I stand on that.”
As Ross recalls, Counsell was the first person he called after Hoyer fired him. He said he told Counsell there were a lot of great people in the Cubs’ organization. Counsell thanked him. The conversation, Ross said, lasted perhaps 15 to 20 seconds.
“I try to put myself in his shoes and what would I have done? I don’t know that I would have done it like that, if I’m being honest,” Ross said. “But everybody’s got different ways they look at things. It is what it is. I’m a very big believer in things happen for a reason. God’s got a plan for me in my life. I try to believe in that, hold onto that, trust that.”
Watching Counsell manage his old team the past two seasons gave Ross fresh perspective. The Cubs finished with the same 83-79 record in Counsell’s first season as they did in Ross’ last. This year, they went 92-70, and on Tuesday they defeated the San Diego Padres, 3-1, to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three wild card series.
Hoyer said the only reason the Cubs fired Ross was because Counsell was available.
“David felt like he did a good job. I get that. He felt like he was blindsided. He was,” Hoyer said. “I totally understand his emotions about it. I think anyone would have the same feelings.
“I really enjoyed working with David. I thought he did a good job,” Hoyer added. “He certainly was coming back the next year but for the chance we had to get Craig. I felt it was the right thing and something we needed to do. But David is a good manager and absolutely should get another chance given his performance with us.”
Looking back, Ross realizes there are certain things he could have done differently – and probably would do differently in his next job.
“I still had a players’ mentality,” said Ross, who became a manager only three years after his final game as a player.”I don’t want to yell and scream at umpires all the time. I probably did that way more than I ever expected. I loved umpires when I was catching.
“You’re trying to fight for players. You’ve got to take some of that emotion out of managing and continue to talk through it with the guys. Fight for your players, but there were some emotions sometimes that got the best of me from a managing standpoint, if I’m being honest.”
Ross said he also wishes he had worked as hard communicating with the front office as he did with his coaches and players.
“I feel like I invested heavily in the players. It was my first time running a coaching staff, managing other grown men. It was a learning curve for me,” Ross said. “I probably should have invested in the relationship with Jed, Carter and those guys more than I probably did.”
Ross said his relationship with Hoyer and Hawkins was fine, but as a first-time manager his primary focus was, “trying to put Ws on the board.” He wasn’t as cognizant of the big picture, the rebuilding process taking place.
Every out-of-work manager looking for a new job would prefer to take over a winning team. But most of the time, openings only arise with losing clubs. With the Cubs, Ross came to understand that rebuilding could be fulfilling. He said he is willing to consider any job.
“Here’s the way I look at it. Obviously, you want to win. But there’s something rewarding about building,” Ross said. “You go through some tough times. But that’s part of it. Even when you have a winning team . . . Aaron Boone doesn’t have an easy job. Alex Cora doesn’t have an easy job.
“There are tons of great opportunities.”
Shortly after Ross was fired, the New York Yankees approached him about becoming their bench coach, replacing Carlos Mendoza, who had left to manage the New York Mets. Ross at the time preferred to manage if he was going to jump back into a uniformed position.
Last offseason, Ross said he again had conversations about bench coach positions, but the timing wasn’t right. The oldest of his three children, Landri, was a senior in high school, preparing to play volleyball in college (she attends North Alabama). He had other family considerations. And the terms of his buyout with his Cubs were another complication.
“Just a lot of moving parts,” Ross said. “The more I thought about it, how valuable being home felt with the year off, I just was not ready to go.”
His feeling now is different. The end of his tenure with the Cubs gnaws it him. He did not get to complete the job.
He has returned to Wrigley only once, in May for a concert featuring Jelly Roll and Post Malone. And as difficult as it was to accept losing his job to Counsell, he understands baseball isn’t always fair. The Cubs fired Ross, yes. But they also gave him a chance he otherwise might not have had.
“It’s a weird dynamic. That organization has been amazing to me,” Ross said. “There’s still frustration there from just how things ended. It just sucks. But it’s a business at the end of the day. I know that.
“There are a lot of more positives to talk about with how that organization treated me. That’s where it’s hard to stay mad, when you look back on how many great things happened to me there.
“I just have a little bit of emptiness from some unfinished business. I loved going to work every day and grinding with those guys.”
And if another club comes calling, he would do it all over again.
—The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma contributed to this story.
(Photo of David Ross in June 2023: Rob Leiter / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
