Singapore 181 for 9 (Manpreet 41, David 41, Burl 3-24) beat Zimbabwe 177 for 7 (Williams 66, Chakabva 48, Mahboob 2-20, Prakash 2-34)

When Tony Munyonga cut teenager Sidhant Singh for only a single in the game's final ball at the Indian Association Ground in Singapore, history was made as the hosts beat a Full Member for the first time in international cricket.

In a rain-hit 18-over contest , Zimbabwe fell four short of the 182 target despite Sean Williams' 66, to lose their first game of the tri-nation series that now sees both teams (and the other side Nepal) tied on two points each.

Singapore's captain Amjad Mahboob was understandably proud of his team at the presentation: "I just spoke to my boys, 'Just do your best, just fight until the last ball; just don't care about the result and just give your best and see the result came in our favour. Yesterday we lost. Yesterday I didn't play [against Nepal who won the game by nine wickets]. Just today I came and I told the boys pre-game that to play to our potential. To not be scared. We are a young side and it's a great feeling to beat a Test nation. We are very happy."

It seemed victory was Zimbabwe's when Williams was at the crease. He had struck five sixes and as many fours in his 35-ball stay, but fell in the 16th over with Zimbabwe still 19 away from the target. Only four down, they were still favourites to cross the line with Ryan Burl and Richmond Mutumbami in the middle, but a double-wicket over from medium-pacer Janak Prakash - which cost only seven runs - turned the scales in Singapore's favour.

With the big-hitting Burl gone and Zimbabwe's lower order suddenly exposed, Mahboob brought back fast bowler Sidhant for the game's final over, and he delivered, conceding only five when Zimbabwe needed 10.

"I've been around for a while now and getting myself that close and not finishing the job is very disappointing for me and I take that to heart," Williams said. "Obviously because I'm a leader of the side and I've got to be the one that stands up and finishing the job."

Zimbabwe's innings was given an early impetus by their opener Regis Chakabva, who struck 48 in 19 balls. Chakabva was brutal, in particular, on Vinoth Baskaran, taking 18 runs in just one over. That put Zimbabwe ahead of the net run-rate early and with No. 3 Williams for company, the duo added 41 for the second wicket. Williams switched on big-hitting mode against Tim David, whacking him for 24 runs in the 12th over. And yet somehow Singapore stayed in the game with three tight overs that saw both set batsmen dismissed. Thereafter, it was a matter of holding their nerve, which they did, conceding only one boundary in the final two overs to complete a remarkable win.

That Singapore made 181 for 9 was courtesy their wicketkeeper, No. 5 Manpreet Singh and allrounder David. Both struck 41 each, in 23 and 24 deliveries respectively, to lift Singapore to a challenging total. Singapore had earlier added over 60 in the Powerplay thanks to their openers Rohan Rangarajan (39) and Surendran Chandramohan (23) but Burl's two wickets in his opening spell pegged Singapore's progress in the middle overs.

It was then that David and Manpreet added a quickfire 38 for the fourth wicket, and when the former was dismissed in the 13th over, the latter hit the accelerator. Singapore added 59 off the last five overs, and that late burst, eventually, was the difference between the two sides.

Williams, though, felt the game slipped away from Zimbabwe a little later on. "We lost Tino Mutombodzi there," Williams said. "We were actually planning on going in that [14th] over. That could've been a turning point in the game and then we just lost a clutter of wickets again. Obviously having Timycen [Maruma] injured early on in the game wasn't great for us. But, look, these things happen. The outfield and the weather conditions happen and we've got to deal with that and come up with some better plans and better mental conditions to win the game."

One-Day Internationals returning to Karachi after 10 years. A washout denying fans a chance at watching any cricket on Friday. This city prides itself as the most cricket-mad city in the country. Tickets should have been snapped up, right? Wrong.

ESPNcricinfo understands only around 20% of tickets have been sold yet. Anecdotal evidence made it clear that the uptake wasn't as swift as the PCB might have been hoping. It was made official when they announced ticket holders for the abandoned first ODI could attend either of the two remaining games. Moreover, the same applied to ticket holders for the second ODI; common sense would suggest if either of the games were anywhere near full houses, that would have been impossible to guarantee.

It isn't that Karachiites have fallen out of love with the game, though with demand much higher for the T20s in Lahore despite higher prices, there are suggestions the ODI game might be harder to market in Pakistan despite fans having limited opportunities to see any international cricket.

The series was beset by several obstacles before it got off the ground, which hindered PCB's advertising campaign well ahead of time. The on-off nature of the series would have put Ross and Rachel - of TV show Friends fame - to shame; it is easy to forget just over a fortnight ago, the Sri Lankan government said they had received credible information of a terror threat to the Sri Lankan team.

The PCB received a nod from Sri Lanka Cricket only a week before the first ODI, making it a bigger challenge for PCB's marketing department to put campaigns together for a series on paper hadn't taken off until that point. Similarly, selling tickets that may have had to be refunded was tricky. It is understood that the provincial government hasn't assisted with advertising and marketing the series like they did for the PSL final and the three T20Is they hosted against West Indies in 2018.

Then there was the squad Sri Lanka actually sent for Pakistan. With 10 top players pulling out citing security concerns, Sri Lanka's squad is, to put it mildly, far from full-strength. When the West Indies played three T20Is in Karachi last year, some players chose not to tour, resulting in heavily one-sided games. The prospect of the same occurring during this ODI series cannot be ruled out, and may well have played a part in so many fans choosing to stay away.

The coup de grace was provided by Karachi's weather. A city that sees very little rain, and almost none at this time of year, was pounded all week by heavy downpours that might have made Sri Lanka's players feel they were still at home.

Karachi's roads are famously unprepared to handle rainwater and facilities at the ground, while decent, were no match for the forces of nature they had to unexpectedly reckon with. With the weather forecast suggesting, accurately after all, that Friday would see yet more rains, there was little incentive for fans to get their tickets, and consequently not many subjected themselves to braving the heavy security and dark skies to turn up on match day.

There are a number of reasons for sluggish ticket sales, but Pakistan needs fans to turn up. Especially if the whole idea of bringing cricket back is to avoid the ugly spectacle of high-quality cricket being played in front of near-empty stands in the UAE, and to give the nation's cricket-deprived fans an opportunity to watch their team play. Much of what's happened to suppress demand isn't the PCB's fault, but as they will know all too well, it is very much their problem.

DENVER -- Jacksonville Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey was declared inactive because of a back injury and will not play against the Denver Broncos.

Ramsey had battled an illness and the back injury this week, and he spent several days away from the team for the birth of his second child in Nashville.

This is the first game that Ramsey will miss since the Jaguars drafted him at No. 5 in 2016.

It has been an eventful two weeks for Ramsey, who asked the team to trade him after being chastised by Jaguars executive VP of football operations Tom Coughlin following the Jaguars' 13-12 loss at Houston on Sept. 15. Ramsey got into a sideline shouting match with coach Doug Marrone in that game after Marrone refused Ramsey's request to challenge a completion to DeAndre Hopkins.

Ramsey played against Tennessee on Sept. 19 but did not practice Monday because of an illness. He also missed Wednesday's practice with a back injury, which created its own drama. Three hours after Marrone said he didn't know when Ramsey suffered the injury, the team released a statement saying Ramsey actually did report back soreness to the team's medical staff during the fourth quarter of the game against the Titans.

Earlier Wednesday, Marrone had said he thought the two-time Pro Bowl cornerback would be able to play against the Broncos, "if he has the ability to play."

On Wednesday night, the team announced that Ramsey would return to his hometown for the impending birth of his second child and released a statement from Marrone that Ramsey "will return to the team when he's ready."

Alabama is No. 1 in the Associated Press college football poll for the first time this season, replacing preseason No. 1 Clemson after the Tigers had a close call.

Alabama received 29 of 61 first-place votes Sunday from the media panel as the Tigers' one-point victory at North Carolina gave the AP Top 25 presented by Regions Bank the first shake-up at the top this season. Clemson slipped to No. 2 and received 18 first-place votes.

The last time a No. 1 team won but dropped was Ohio State on Nov. 7, 2015, after the Buckeyes beat Minnesota 28-14 at home. It had happened 74 times previously since the poll started in 1936.

No. 3 Georgia received four first-place votes. Ohio State moved up to No. 4 and received seven first-place votes. LSU was No. 5, and Oklahoma sixth. No. 7 Auburn received three first-place votes.

At the other end of the rankings, No. 24 SMU is ranked for the first time since the program received the so-called death penalty for NCAA rules violations in 1987 and did not compete for two seasons.

POLL POINTS

Alabama has now been ranked No. 1 at some point in each of the past 12 seasons, extending its own record. The second-longest streak belongs to Miami, which had seven consecutive seasons with an appearance at No. 1 from 1986 to 1992.

This is the 119th time Alabama has been No. 1, the most of any school since the AP poll started in 1936, and the 88th time it has been top-ranked under coach Nick Saban since he took over in 2007. Only Ohio State, Oklahoma, Notre Dame and Southern California have more total appearances at No. 1 than Alabama has under Saban.

IN

SMU's appearance in the rankings is historic, considering where that program has been. After returning from the death penalty in 1989, the Mustangs managed just one winning season (6-5 in 1997) over the next 20 years.

The program had an uptick under June Jones from 2009 to 2012, going to four straight bowl games and topping out at eight victories. There has been only one winning season since. Under second-year coach Sonny Dykes, the Mustangs are playing their best ball since the Pony Express days of Eric Dickerson and Craig James in the early 1980s. SMU is not a national championship contender, but the Mustangs head into the second month of the season looking like a team that should push for an American Athletic Conference crown.

The Mustangs (5-0) are off to their best overall start since 1983, are 3-0 on the road and are 10-4 in their past 14 games overall.

• No. 22 Wake Forest also ended a long run of being outside the rankings. The Demon Deacons (5-0) are ranked for the first time since Oct. 18, 2008. Wake's Top 25 drought was the third longest among Power 5 schools, behind Indiana (last ranked in 1994) and Purdue (2007).

The next three longest streaks of being unranked among Power 5 conference teams are Kansas (2009), Illinois (2011) and Rutgers (2012).

• No. 20 Arizona State returned to the rankings after beating California at home on Friday.

• No. 21 Oklahoma State is ranked for the first time since the final poll of 2017.

OUT

• Cal took a big tumble, from No. 15 to out of the rankings, after its first loss.

• USC is out again after losing at Washington.

• Kansas State had a one-week stay, falling out after losing at Oklahoma State.

TIE

Texas A&M is barely hanging on in the rankings. The only two-loss team to be ranked -- the Aggies lost to Clemson and Auburn -- is tied with Michigan State for the final spot in the rankings.

CONFERENCE CALL

SEC -- 6 (Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 25).

Big Ten -- 5 (Nos. 4, 8, 12, 14, 25).

Pac-12 -- 4 (Nos. 13, 15, 17, 20).

ACC -- 3 (Nos. 2, 22, 23).

Big 12 -- 3 (Nos. 6, 11, 21).

American -- 2 (Nos. 18, 24).

Mountain West -- 1 (No. 16).

CHICAGO -- Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky has been ruled out of the remainder of Sunday's home game against the Vikings with a left shoulder injury.

The Vikings knocked Trubisky out of the game on the Bears' sixth offensive play of the afternoon when Minnesota defensive end Danielle Hunter sacked the 25-year old quarterback for a 10-yard loss.

On the play, Trubisky's body twisted and his left shoulder hit the ground violently as Hunter pulled him down, causing the quarterback to fumble the ball. Minnesota's Everson Griffen scooped up the fumble, though a defensive holding penalty on Vikings safety Anthony Harris gave the ball back to Chicago.

Trubisky immediately went to the blue injury tent before being escorted back to the locker room for further medical attention.

Veteran backup Chase Daniel replaced Trubisky and tossed a first-quarter touchdown pass to Bears running back Tarik Cohen.

The second overall pick of the 2017 draft, Trubisky started all 12 games as a rookie after taking over for ineffective Mike Glennon in Week 5 but missed two games last year because of a right shoulder injury.

Trubisky finished last season with respectable numbers in head coach Matt Nagy's system, passing for 3,223 yards, 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions (95.4 quarterback rating) as Chicago went 12-4 and won its first NFC North title since 2010.

But Trubisky struggled to begin the 2019 season.

After lackluster performances versus Green Bay and Denver, Trubisky got back on track in the Bears' victory over the Redskins last Monday night, throwing for a season-high 231 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. Trubisky had completed 2 of 3 passes for nine yards at the time of his injury on Sunday.

The Bears signed Daniel, who played under Nagy in Kansas City, to a two-year deal prior to the 2018 season that included $7 million in guarantees. Daniel will earn $6 million in 2019.

Daniel, 32, appeared in five games with two starts for the Bears last season.

DETROIT -- Patrick Mahomes failed to throw a touchdown pass on Sunday for just the fourth time in his career. His streak of throwing at least two TD passes is over at 14 games, one short of the NFL record.

That sounds like a recipe for failure for the Chiefs, who in the absence of three injured offensive starters have been asking for even more from the NFL's reigning MVP. But it worked out for them on Sunday, as they came back from behind to beat the Detroit Lions 34-30 on Darrel Williams' 1-yard touchdown run with 20 seconds left.

The Chiefs also scored a controversial 100-yard touchdown on a fumble return to go ahead 20-13 in the third quarter. Lions running back Kerryon Johnson fumbled near the Chiefs' goal line on the play, but most players on the field believed Johnson was down before the ball came out. Cornerback Bashaud Breeland alertly picked up the ball, and with no Lions in pursuit, ran the length of the field for the TD.

Peyton Manning still holds the NFL record for consecutive games with multiple TD passes at 15. Mahomes had only three previous career games without a TD pass -- two in the regular season and once against Indianapolis in last season's playoffs.

However, Mahomes did become the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era (since 1966) to lead his team to multiple 4-0 starts before his 25th birthday. He finished 24-of-42 for 315 yards Sunday.

The Chiefs played without injured wide receiver Tyreek Hill, running back Damien Williams and left tackle Eric Fisher.

AKRON, Ohio -- A sweat-stained jersey LeBron James wore while playing Ohio high school basketball and during his first Sports Illustrated magazine cover shoot as a teenager in 2002 is being auctioned.

The online auction listing says the gold mesh jersey from the NBA star's days with the St. Vincent-St. Mary Fighting Irish in Akron features green lettering with the word "Irish" and No. 23, the same number he'd later wear for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Goldin Auctions says James gave the jersey to its current owner, an unidentified seller who attended the school.

The auction house says 5% of the proceeds will go to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The auction runs until Oct. 19. Early bidding reached $37,000.

James now plays for the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Pittsburgh Pirates fired manager Clint Hurdle on Sunday.

The NL Central-worst Pirates fired the 62-year-old Hurdle after a 69-92 record, the franchise's worst since 2010 (57-105).

Hurdle had two years remaining on his contract. He had been the third-longest-tenured manager in the majors, behind only the retiring Bruce Bochy of the Giants and Ned Yost of the Royals.

"Words cannot express how much respect and appreciation I have for Clint as a person and a leader," general manager Neal Huntington said in a statement. "He was the right person at the right time to take on the enormous challenge of leading our Major League team out of an extended losing streak and piloting us to three straight Postseason appearances. We will be forever grateful for his dedication to the Pirates organization on and off the field. This was an extremely difficult decision for us. As an organization, we believe it was time for a managerial change to introduce a new voice and new leadership inside the clubhouse.

"This has been a challenging season on many levels. We are committed to assessing and improving upon our operations at all levels in order to return Postseason baseball to Pittsburgh."

Huntington will not be fired, chairman Bob Nutting said in a statement.

"While we felt it was time to make a change at the managerial level, I strongly believe Neal Huntington and the leadership team that he has assembled are the right people to continue to lead our baseball operations department," Nutting said.

Hired as manager in 2011, Hurdle led the Pirates to winning seasons in four of his nine years. They made the playoffs three times, the last coming in a 2015 NL wild-card loss to the Cubs.

But Pittsburgh has hit a dry spell since, and bottomed out in 2019 as losses and a series of on- and off-the-field incidents piled up.

In July, reliever Keone Kela was suspended two games by the team for a confrontation he had with its performance coach. Weeks later, the Pirates suspended bullpen coach Euclides Rojas for two games after an altercation he had with reliever Kyle Crick.

In early August, Hurdle was among eight suspended for his role in a benches-clearing brawl with the Reds sparked when Kela threw up and in at Cincinnati's Derek Dietrich.

In September, Crick needed season-ending surgery on the index finger of his pitching hand after he was injured in a clubhouse fight with closer Felipe Vazquez. The following week, Vazquez was arrested on multiple felony charges, including sexual assault of a minor.

The Pirates were one game under .500 at the All-Star break, 2½ games behind the first-place Cubs in the NL Central. But they proceeded to win just four of their next 28 games to plummet out of contention.

The 2018 trade deadline deal with the Rays for Chris Archer backfired. The right-hander is 6-12 with a 4.92 ERA since joining the Pirates, while two of the players acquired for him, outfielder Austin Meadows and pitcher Tyler Glasnow, have blossomed with Tampa Bay.

Not everything was Hurdle's doing, but it was enough for him to be fired. He finishes with a 735-720-1 record over his nine seasons in Pittsburgh, winning 2013 NL Manager of the Year along the way.

The Chicago Cubs are moving on from Joe Maddon, the manager who led them to their first World Series title in 108 years, team president Theo Epstein and Maddon announced Sunday.

Maddon, 65, is officially a free agent after the Cubs missed the postseason for the first time in five years. A nine-game losing streak in late September sealed the fate of the Cubs, and possibly Maddon, as well.

Maddon and Epstein made the announcement in St. Louis, where the Cubs are trying to play the rare recent role of spoiler in keeping the Cardinals from clinching the NL Central.

"We're both going to move on," Maddon said. "Hopefully, the Cubs are going to flourish. Hopefully, I get a chance to do this someplace else. But there's no tears shed. It's a good moment for everybody. And we're both excited about our futures."

The Cubs finished above .500 in each of Maddon's five seasons. His .582 winning percentage ranks second all time in franchise history, behind only Frank Chance (768-389, .664, from 1905 to '12).

"We both agreed that, this type of change, that it's time and that this type of change is a win-win." Epstein said, adding that the Cubs were at a point where they needed a change.

"We never could have imagined this working out as well as it did," he added. "I personally never could have imagined having such a wonderful partner, someone so loyal and supportive and someone from whom I learned so much about baseball and life."

Cubs slugger Anthony Rizzo said that Maddon told the team of his decision a few days ago.

"It was a great night, kind of a bittersweet night," Rizzo said. "Just talking to Joe. He's in a good place."

Rizzo said that Maddon't going out on his own terms.

"He's a living legend in this game, a bridge to the old and the new," he added, saying that he's like a father to him.

Maddon came to Chicago after nearly a decade with the Tampa Bay Rays, whom he took to the 2008 World Series.

He did one better with the Cubs, guiding them to 103 regular-season wins in 2016 and then a long-awaited World Series title that postseason. He was credited with changing the culture and creating a loose atmosphere for his players during a pressure-filled time. His "Embrace the Target" slogan was the right touch in a year when many picked the Cubs to win it all, even before spring training began.

The World Series win was not without controversy, as Maddon's pitching maneuvers were scrutinized during and after the victory. Still, he'll go down as the manager who broke the longest championship drought in professional sports history.

"It's hard to express kind of how (it) feels. You kind of feel like it could be an end of an era," said veteran utility man Ben Zobrist, who played for Maddon in Tampa Bay and Chicago. "When I look at my career, he's at the top. ... Joe's a special person. Those kind of people, let alone managers, don't come along very often."

Maddon's last two years in Chicago, however, were plagued by underachievement on several levels. Although the Cubs won 95 games in 2018, they lost in the NL wild-card game to the Colorado Rockies, and upper management decided to hold off talks of a contract extension, challenging Maddon to be the "best version" of himself heading into 2019. After a 2-7 start to the season, the team went 23-7 over the next month, vaulting into the NL Central lead.

But the Cubs played .500 baseball over the next four months, treading water but hanging around in the playoff race. The wheels came off on their final homestand in September as the Cubs lost two of three to the under-.500 Cincinnati Reds before being swept by the first-place Cardinals, losing each of the four games by one run.

Maddon signed a five-year, $25 million deal with the Cubs before the 2015 season and received a $1 million annual salary bump after winning the World Series. He ranks fifth in franchise history in wins and managed the team to four straight playoff appearances, a franchise record.

"I can't say enough positives about what Joe has done, flat-out, for this organization," Cubs pitcher Jon Lester said last week. "Up until this year we led MLB in wins [over the past four years]. That's a testament to him. We broke a 108-year curse. ... He should be revered as a legend in this town for a long, long time."

From savior to saying goodbye, the Joe Maddon story in Chicago has had all the elements of a good drama -- but it doesn't have the happiest of endings for the manager who was in the dugout for the most successful stretch in franchise history, highlighted by the Cubs' 2016 World Series victory.

Maddon's tenure is coming to its end at the same time a disappointing season does. On Sunday, the team announced there will be no contract extension for the man with the second-highest winning percentage in franchise history.

Maddon's dismissal from the Cubs boils down to one sentence: He wasn't able to outmanage the mistakes the front office saddled him with. The issues go deeper than just those 13 words, of course, but it's important to keep in mind the collective failure of the group -- which includes management, coaches and, of course, players.

Maddon is the scapegoat in this story, but he allowed himself to become one by overseeing an underachieving team two years in a row, culminating with an epic collapse to end this season.

Why Maddon is out

Was Maddon set up for success the past two seasons? Not entirely. But he was in charge of a roster that was expected to win big and still had a chance to do so, despite some pretty clear flaws.

He and the Cubs need to look no farther than 90 miles north of them to see a team that did all the things the Cubs could not when adversity struck. The Milwaukee Brewers managed to -- fill in the cliché here -- rise to the occasion, rally around an injury and respond to their manager. Craig Counsell is likely the NL Manager of the Year for leading a team with all sorts of holes on its roster and that lost its best player at the worst time. Sound familiar? That could have been Maddon and the Cubs, but instead Chicago crumbled under the weight of the stretch run as it became evident that the magic of 2016 was gone for good.

"It's hard to put your finger on it or place blame on any one group," veteran Daniel Descalso said. "As a collective whole, we just didn't do enough. We never got into that gear to push past that barrier and get on a roll."

The old saying that staying on top is harder than getting there rings true for these Cubs. Beginning in 2018, the thread that kept them all going in the same direction began to come apart. The cumulative losses of edgy leaders such as David Ross, Miguel Montero and John Lackey began to affect the clubhouse. Left in their place was a group of good leaders by example but not necessarily the type to get in a player's face.

And neither was Maddon.

"When you make a lot of errors in the field, when you make a lot of errors in the baserunning, that's momentum," pitcher Cole Hamels stated. "That's an area that could get corrected. There's still a lot of players in here that are still learning."

That's not to say Maddon didn't have stern conversations with his players, but the sloppy results indict him either way: Either he didn't address matters strongly enough, as errors and outs on the bases piled up to league-leading highs, or the message didn't get through.

The lack of accountability can manifest in many ways, obvious and not so obvious. Leading the league in bad baserunning and unfocused defense is obvious; not progressing as a player or forgetting to play a team game is more ambiguous but is no less on the manager.

"Especially in this city, with the expectations on this franchise, you have to stay a little bit more on it [the little things]," Hamels continued. "Giving away games, early in the year, understanding they will come back and bite you."

And bite they did. The Cubs were in no position to withstand a fluky run in September when they lost five straight one-run games. The answer was to be better earlier.

It isn't Maddon's fault that Albert Almora Jr. stopped hitting, David Bote stopped fielding, Hamels got hurt, Jon Lester showed his age, Kyle Hendricks couldn't win on the road, Willson Contreras and Kyle Schwarber kept getting thrown out on the bases, and the front office signed Craig Kimbrel months too late. But even the most earnest Maddon defenders have to admit one indisputable fact: It all happened on his watch.

"I still don't get why we made all those mistakes," Descalso opined. "They really hurt us."

His legacy

The majority of Cubs fans -- you know, the ones not tweeting angrily all day -- will recognize the contributions Maddon made to the team and the city during his tenure. He really was the perfect person at the exact right time to lead the Cubs to the promised land.

What was so special?

Maddon firmly believes that playing loose is the only way to play. Yes, it sounds like something that backfired eventually, but in 2015, and especially in 2016, his team faced immense pressure to do something that hadn't been done in over a century. So many previous Cubs teams had fallen victim to what comes with trying to end the longest championship drought in pro sports history. Maddon defused that tension while providing an atmosphere where young players could contribute right away.

"Joe is great," reliever Pedro Strop said. "He lets us be us and just go play."

In terms of Maddon's best moves during that time, two come to mind. In the book "Try Not to Suck," a bio of Maddon, Cubs president Theo Epstein says the manager's best work came in relation to benching perennial All-Star Starlin Castro while promoting 21-year-old Addison Russell to starting shortstop. It showed Maddon was willing to make the tough decision and tell the truth to a veteran. The next spring, he came up with the slogan "Embrace the target," which meant the Cubs were not going to run away from the lofty expectations the baseball world had bestowed on them in 2016. Instead, they were going to meet them head-on. And they did.

"That was really smart," general manager Jed Hoyer said after the World Series. "Joe did a great job of taking all the pressure off and letting the guys just go play."

What came after the 2016 season was always going to be rockier than most wanted to believe. After one championship in 108 years, did people really think the Cubs would go 2-for-2 or even 2-for-3? Many obviously did, but Epstein is too smart to fire a manager simply because he didn't win a second championship. Either way, Maddon's legacy should be cemented. The ending wasn't great, but the body of work speaks for itself. Lester said it best: Maddon should be revered in Chicago. And he will be, especially as the frustration of the past two seasons begins to fade.

"The way that it's ending is tough to see," Kris Bryant said. "The guy is a legend here. A legend. Winning so many games here and completely turning this team into a winning team and culture. I don't think he's getting enough credit for what he's done."

What's next for the Cubs?

The Cubs might already have their next manager in mind, but at the very least they should know the qualities they need. Maddon worked hard to connect with a younger generation of players, but a younger manager and former major leaguer will inherently speak the millennial language. Whether the next manager has experience or not, he had better understand the ever-changing dynamics within a pitching staff, especially as it relates to the National League. If people wondered about Maddon's bullpen maneuvers, what will they say of a rookie manager's?

Just as important as any in-game decision, the new manager must work with a firmer hand. By their own admission, Cubs players have been pampered by owner Tom Ricketts and team brass. It's first class all the way, but the players haven't always reciprocated. In a sense, it feels as if they've taken advantage of their parents and now need a little more discipline in their lives.

"Every player and situation calls for something different," Descalso said. "There's some really respected guys in this clubhouse and when they speak, guys listen. Leadership here is good, but leaders come in different forms and personalities."

Is there one candidate who best fits all those attributes? Counsell's name comes to mind as the prototype of what Chicago is looking for, but he already has a job. Ross has some of those qualities but no experience running a pitching staff. Joe Girardi could qualify but might not connect the way the Cubs need. No matter what happens, the Cubs need a new leader for a new way. The old way led to a magical moment in 2016. Now it's time for something different. And for their sake, it had better be better.