What's next for Joe Maddon? There should be plenty of opportunities for the departing Cubs manager.

ST. LOUIS - Joe Maddon waited a long time for his first full-time managerial job.

He was 51 when he was hired in 2006 to take over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, a bottom-dwelling team that had few fans and no national following. It would've been logical to think Maddon, whose playing days plateaued in the minors, would never get his dream job, despite a couple of brief, interim stints with the Angels in the 1990s.

"I really thought I'd get that opportunity," Maddon said in August in Cincinnati. "I did. Also I have often said I would've gotten it sooner had I been a player