Interesting Article re: Dusty from 2002..

[Rusch33]

Baker would only be letting himself in for trouble

 

November 8, 2002

 

BY RICK TELANDER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

 

Dusty Baker might be coming to the Cubs?

 

To do what? Bat cleanup?

 

If he could insert himself in the lineup behind Sammy Sosa and bring the 21 homers, 29 doubles and 99 RBI he collected in 1973 while playing outfield for the Atlanta Braves, that would be nice.

 

But the Duster--real name: Johnnie B Baker--is a paunchy, toothpick-chewin' manager these days. And he isn't even swift enough to snatch his own 3-year-old son from postseason near-collisions at home plate.

 

No, Baker turned his back on the oddly cold-hearted management of the San Francisco Giants, his home this last decade, and has hinted he would just love to manage the chronically and incurably diseased Cubs.

 

Why?

 

OK, money. Four million dollars per year has been bandied about.

 

But after you take a team to the World Series, as Baker just did with the Giants, you can go lots of places to manage for lots of money. Actually, almost all World Series managers just stay home and collect magna-loot.

 

But as Baker has said, almost pouting, "Everybody wants to be where they feel they're wanted.''

 

Giants owner Peter Magowan hasn't shown the love, so the Dust-meister has been forced to set off into the heartland to find it.

 

Still, there will be 10 major-league teams with new managers next spring. And Baker wants the Cubs?

 

The Cubs are right on track to go a century--1908 to 2008--without winning a World Series, and Baker would be but a peanut shell beneath the hobs of such a force.

 

Here is a guy who put together three consecutive seasons of 90 or more wins and six straight seasons of finishing first or second in the National League West, and he wants to come to a place that talks about its 1998 one-game playoff victory against the Giants for the NL wild card (followed immediately by a three-game wipeout by the Braves) as if it were Cubs Liberation Day?

 

Something's fishy.

 

Baker can't play. He can't pitch middle relief. He can't change Six Flags Over Wrigleyville into The Cradle of Baseball.

 

Sure, Baker would like to be known as the Man Who Turned the Cubs Around.

 

But what he will find instead is death.

 

Not physical, but spiritual.

 

Do any of you remember the grand trumpeting that heralded much-coveted manager Don Baylor joining the Cubs in the fall of 1999?

 

Oh, the miracles the tough former player would perform!

 

The nonsense he wouldn't take!

 

The pride he would instill!

 

"There are Cub fans all over the world,'' Baylor said that heady November day, before he had drawn up a single lineup card. "Just think if we ever won it here.''

 

Baylor left last summer, fired, impotent, beaten to mush by the surging Cub Carnival, the great tidal wave of good cheer.

 

The sly Tribune Co. knows there is no luxury tax on managers.

 

The Trib can go out and spend some dollars on a guy like Baker, let the silly Cubs fans celebrate wildly and not have to worry about spending wisely and seriously and heavily on a bullpen or third baseman or center fielder.

 

Why didn't the club re-sign Greg Maddux when it could have? Snare a star catcher? Hook up with Randy Johnson?

 

The last decade was the time to buy yourself a winner, a la the Yankees. Now that era is slowly closing, with bigger penalties for bigger payrolls.

 

So buying a face-saving manager makes sense. To the bean counters.

 

But what can a manager like Baker do?

 

Nothing.

 

He is good with veteran players, word is. Got dual jerks Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds not to kill each other.

 

Lord, the Cubs don't have any player disputes to mend, superstars to separate.

 

After Joe Girardi's and Sosa's little hoo-ha last season over too-loud salsa music on the CD player was resolved, you had a clubhouse that was basically devoid of much of anything.

 

Sammy's going to be Sammy and swing as hard as he can at every pitch, no matter who wears the manager's uniform.

 

Girardi? He's one step from a manager's suit himself.

 

This Baker business is stupid.

 

A smokescreen and a Band-Aid.

 

Baker doesn't always get along with the press. He is easily insulted. He blew off the late offers of admittedly insensitive owner Magowan and slammed the door on the Giants.

 

And he's not a great game strategist.

 

He's good with players, but what difference does that make if you don't have the players?

 

Plus, if Baker takes the job, he'll be stunned by the culture of Cubdom.

 

Wait until he and his troops return from a losing road trip only to see Wrigley Field packed with 39,000 people, screaming as though the playoffs have begun.

 

Baker will scratch his graying head, twirl his toothpick and say to himself, "Toto, I think we've landed.''

 

And a couple of years after that, he'll be headed out of town, beaten and stunned, wondering to himself where it all went wrong.

 

 

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Quite interesting that this guy might be nailing this one right in the head.

 

I don't have the link as you have to pay 3 bucks for the stupid article on the suntimes site.

[ConstableRabbit]

I'm speechless.

[Larry Horse]

Nice work, Telander.

[Irrelevant Dude]

Wow, he was right on with that one.

[cubs121]

he was right! but im still gonna try to get him out of here feeling even worse!