Unafraid of the curse, Joey Votto will appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated on August 30, 2010.

I’m about as unsuperstitious as they come, but I will point out that the last Red to appear on the cover of this magazine was Ken Griffey, Jr., and we all know how that turned out.

It’s a common for magazine covers to have numerals in their headlines. For some reason, plugging stories like “5 Easy Ways to Lose Your Gut at the Game” and “The 0 Best Places for Ball Park Sushi” are just really appealing to readers.

But this cover features only one numeral: the 19 on Votto’s chest. Even the secondary story about the kindergartner-slugger breaks AP style by spelling out an age. Apparently that 19 carries a lot of weight all on its own.

That, and the come-hither look Votto’s giving the newstand passer-by, a smoldering look that seems to say, “Me? Cursed? I’ve already survived Dusty Baker: I’m untouchable.”

It’s the end of an era.

Sunday, Lou Piniella hung up his spikes to spend more time with his family. His 90-year old mother is apparently ailing, and a guy has to have his priorities.

According to the press release, Piniella won three Manager of the Year Awards, including in 2008 with the Cubs. He’s retiring as the 14th winningest manager in Major League history.

Will he be back in a few years to climb up to lucky number 13? Retirement can get awful boring.

Also from the press release:

“to the Cubs fans, thank you for four wonderful seasons. You are the best, most deserving fans in all of baseball and it has been an honor to manage your ballclub.”

Well, I don’t know about that, but it was a nice thing to say.

The Cubs organization has promoted third-base coach Mike Quade to fill in the manager role, and to celebrate, the Cubs went to town on the Nationals. Sure, it’s just the Nationals, but I’m sure Cubs nation is looking for this to spark the team to get back in this NLC race. Hope springs eternal, and that would be a pretty sweet send off for Sweet Lou.