Soul

Just injuries? Or perhaps not all that excited about playing for Baker, hence less prepared, hence more susceptible to injury---? I guess we'll never know.

Not all Baker's fault. But part of it is. And he's the manager of a MLB club. The name of the game is win or go home. He hasn't won. So time to go home. It's really very simple. The Tribune should be seriously thinking about eating Hendry's extension and firing him too, BTW.

Interesting that Hendry likes 'toolsy' players yet his organization doesn't do a good job of developing raw talent at the lower levels. It's not a good combination. If you want to be the guys who develop raw physical skills, then that's great, but you better have the infrastructure to turn them into good ballplayers. We don't have that, at least not for position players. That might explain alot too. Wrong philosophy for the infrastructure we have in place. Of course, the alternate explanation would be that we just stink at developing players period. Right now, I'm inclined to agree with that assessment. The track record is poor.

Firing Baker might not yield immediate results, true. However, Hendry only gets so many hires before folks above him give up and fire him. We can't get to the next Hendry hire (which I think will be his last, but whatever) until Baker is unloaded. And who knows? Maybe Hendry will get lucky and hit the jackpot. If the next manager will use our pitchers in such a way that he doesn't blow their arms to hell, then I'd say it's an improvement.

I'll be there on the 12th. I'm prepared to boo if they perform badly that day, but I won't be booing just because I'm angry about past games. If you can find a way for me to have a bullhorn connected directly to Dusty's ear, I'll boo him from sunrise to sunset. By the way, the weather reports for this weekend are downright awful. This could be one of those cold,rainy,bad series with the Cubs just getting torched and nobody in the stands. That would be terrible. Hope it doesn't happen.

Unfathomable. Even I didn't think Pierre would do this bad. We're getting to mid May now. He might not be coming out of it. This might be it. Can't we just bring up Pie and dump Bynum?

I agree this would matter, if we had any offense whatsoever.

Pierre finally does something right.

I'll bet half this crowd thinks it's Alou.

Alright Giants fans time to find the Beer man again :roll:

Yes and the grande finale will be a massive firework explosion in the shape of an asterisk.

Why the coy disguises? Just start every Cub hitter off @ 0-2 or 1-2 :roll:

Walker's hitting ability has gone on the 15 day DL

Top of the order coming up for the Cubs

Lens' right. These fans care for nothing other than Barry's next AB.

It takes more effort to suck like Pierre than it does to be good. No, seriously.

Walker continues to impress me defensively at 1B. Yeah, he's done O.K. Too bad the rest of the club hasn't. And Walker's bat has gone to sleep too, though I don't think that started when he moved to 1st.

And as if to say "not so fast Cubbie fans you still suck," Jones comes up...

Barrett still cares. Give that boy a Baby Ruth bar!

Silly. She goes where all good girls go.

Hah. Here we go again friends.

Righttttt. Like we'd want a guy with a career .276 winning percentage. what are we doing with a manager with a winning percetage over 500? Brenley has this, a World Series ring, Baker dosent http://img435.imageshack.us/img435/7748/acfef68ch.jpg I never saw a manager try harder NOT to get one of those than he did in the 2001 playoffs. It helps to have Schilling and Johnson. I'd rather keep the "Brenly face" out of our dugout. So wait. You're saying a manager who doesn't burn out his two super-stud pitchers and wins a World Series because of it should be kept out in favor of one who burns them out and begins a death march into the abyss? Help me out here.

Glad someone else heard "June 10." I was kinda shocked by that. But the more I think about it, if the small cast is coming off on June 3, mid-June doesn't seem too unlikely. Certainly a lot better than July 1 or later that most people originally feared. Sounds more like June 10th is day he returns to *playing*, not returning to the Cubs.

I assume that he didn't just say it in the paper. I assume that what he said "to the paper" was a paraphrase of what he told his team. If you think that there's zero chance of players taking something like that seriously, then why even have a manager? If your players respect you, I do believe they'll listen, and maybe even (gasp!) "try harder". It's a dangerous assumption to make. Many coaches berate players in private while not bashing them publicly. And besides, think about what the criticism is. It's not basketball or football where increased hustle makes an extraordinary difference. Increased concentration and commitment almost always make a difference. The Cubs concentration sucks, and has for years. That's why you see so many crappy outs on the basepaths and dumb plays in the field. The players are to blame, yes, but the majority of the blame goes to Dusty, IMO. EDIT: And how the heck do you know that increased hustle doesn't make a difference in baseball? That's nonsense. I don't buy that a coach ripping the team in platitudes is the difference between them losing a series and then going on a winning streak. And calling out a team in that nature is just as likely to make players press as it is to increase concentration and commitment. You can't hustle your way into hitting a line drive, or making a good throw to first. Come on. He doesn't rip them in private either, you know that. Let's stop pretending. He's a bump on a log; he's doing nothing.

I'd take Brenly. Over Baker? Come on. Easy decision. Would he be my first choice? Probably not. But if it's Brenly now or watch Baker for another 5 months, then give me Brenly please. I'll even take Otto in the booth for 5 months. Basically anything to get Baker out at this point. If someone's got a good idea how to get Hendry out of here too, please share.