TAMPA, Fla. — Barely three months after the abrupt ending to his managing career in Chicago, Lou Piniella looks fitter, tanner and much more energetic than he did during what might have been the most trying season of his career.

That doesn’t mean he has any intentions of changing his mind about managing again, he insists.

In fact, it probably says a lot more about the ordeal he endured over the final weeks that wore him down — and that led first to an announcement in July that he planned to retire after the season and then eventually to the heart-wrenching decision, at the suggestion of the team, three weeks later to leave for home in Tampa to care for his ailing mother.

And as Major League Baseball prepares to honor Piniella and three other just-retired ‘‘legendary managers’’ at the winter meetings today, Piniella wants to dispel at least one public misconception about his final days with the Cubs.

‘‘I didn’t quit,’’ he said Monday

Many that is true, but an incomplete statement.

So, also was this confirmation that he was basically fired in September?

Our hotel smelled like dead hooker vagina (before you ask I had gotten a detailed description from beardown)

Bully Hendry would have signed Harper for 2.5 Billion over 30 years