halplm

Nothing will change if the front office doesn't change... it's really that simple.

Well, being worst in the NL is just as good as worst in the league. AL teams had a much harder schedule no matter how you look at it. I have every confidence the Cubs can lose enough to be the worst team in baseball, but they really already are... and it's really not even close...

It's the manager's responsability to get the team to function as they should during times of high stress. That team fell apart internally at the critical point. They didn't play like they had the rest of the year because Dusty failed at his PRIMARY job. There's really no other explanation.

But that was a team that should have won 95 games. And in fairness to Jim, we didn't know Wood and Prior were walking disasters yet going into 2004. Agreed, but it's not like those two alone are the reason for the 2004 collapse. You look at the team the Cubs had on paper at the end there and it still boggles my mind they didn't win up to 95 games. Everything just fell apart those last two weeks, and I'm still not even sure why. Two words: Dusty Baker

311-312 Can't even claim to be above .500 for the Cubs...

He's trying to play to a larger audience. He knows he's done in Chicago. The Chicago papers and the fans don't mean anything to him. He wants to paint a picture of himself to the national media. The people who've never watched him pull an insanely stupid double switch that might cost his team the game. He's looking for another job, and I'm sure he'll get one. I just think the next team to have him should know what their getting, and the nation shouldn't have a bad opinion of Chicago and Cubs Fans! Unless the Cards want him... then let him pull whatever wool over their eyes he can ;)

Again, I would be willing to bet that the media keeps bringing it up and that's why he repeatedly talks about it. After all, he would've brought it up all the time in San Francisco, last year and earlier this year. And I still say the professional thing to do would be to not talk about it as something more than it is. If it's a story, by all means he should talk about it. But if the media is FISHING for a story, like he says they are, he shouldn't give them that story. However, by giving them the story, he can attempt to gain sympathy, distract people from his horrible abilities as a manager, and have the front page story be about the racism he's the victim of, rather than the fact he overused all his pitchers and still blew a game the day before...

What's he doing right now that could impact 2007 moreso than Hendry's off-season and the manager for 2007 decisions? I don't think he'd haveMORE impact. But he can still influence these players, and he can cause bad blood and tensions everywhere. HE can overuse pitchers, and teach batters bad habits. There's plenty he could do.

He could say "That's not really an issue" But instead, he talks about it repeatedly. He knows the media will portray it as something it's not, and he uses that to try to distract people from what happens on the field. I'm all for letting go of Dusty, but it's wrong to say he has no impact on 2007. He's doing things right now with this team that may hurt them next year. And the media circus swarming around him could cause some problems if he starts laying blame on specific players, as he likes to do...

except the media hasn't DONE that!! Where are the personal lives of people being exposed? If the media was doing that, I'd be all for saying "talk about what's on the field!" But Dusty is the one that only talks about personal stuff!

"Dusty, how do you respond to the repeated criticism of you in the press?" He could respond saying: Well, the press has their job to do, just like I do. They're going to critisize the team and me when we don't perform as well as we should, which we haven't this year. "How are you holding up in this season? Is it wearing you down? Making you want to quit? Regret being here?" He could respond with: No, I don't regret being here. I was hired to do a job here, and I've done the best I could. Clearly it didn't work out well this year. It's hard to have a losing season, but I'm looking forward to next season. If it's here, I'll do my best here, if it's somewhere else, I'll give it my best there. Sure, those might be standard type answers, not giving much insight into what Dusty is really feeling, but they would be talking about HIM. The questions are directed at him, and how he is handling things. They are not about the press, or his mail, or injuries, or anything else. When someone asks you how you feel about critisism directed at you, you should say how you feel about that critisism, not that "a long time ago, I wouldn't have been critisized because the press was part of the team." I personally just don't like seeing someone try to get out of any responsability whatsoever for something THEY are in charge of failing... If Dusty just ONCE said "Yeah, we had injuries and some bad luck and all that, but when it comes down to it, it's on me to work with what we've got and have the team perform as well as it possibly can. I failed to do that this year." Then I'd call him a class act and wish him well on his way out of town.

Boston is the 11th largest metropolitan area at 4.5 million. As for the rest of the season; it's a long Winter ahead, the Pats look mediocre this year, the Celtics stink, the Bruins play but no one will care when the Sox start back. People will show up the rest of the season and look forward to 6 months from now. How do you define metropolitan area? Any area big enough will get you a lot of people. Trust me, having lived there, it's tiny. It has a smaller fan base than most cities with teams, they simply go to more games... because there's nothing else to do... And fenway... trust me, you have to be die-hard to say you enjoy watching a game there...

I agree totally. All he says in this is basically he wants to manage more. He wants to win more. I can't fault him for that much. If I had been successful at my job in the past (in my eyes) and I took another one and wasn't successful, I'd chalk it up to bad luck and try again too. Nothing to see here, move along. In that case, he should not try and make excuses. Just say it was a bad year on everyone's part, and move on. Don't drag up all the stuff he's dragging up trying to get people talkign about anything but the bad team!

If he said "I haven't managed this team well given what we had to work with" then all this other stuff he comes up with would just be stuff. But he's coming up with all this stuff and is hoping no one will blame him for the team playing horribly. He won't take responsability, and continues to bring up stuff totally unrelated to the performance of the Cubs trying to get people talking about something else. He's really good at it, but it's still trying to manipulate things so he looks better. Clearly you don't have a problem with this, but many people do...

so... all the negative attention has nothing to do with being a bad manager? It's getting scoops about negative personal stuff... Um, what negative personal stories have their been this year? Speier's DUI? If anything, that was under-reported. I'm a little confused about how Dusty has been a target for negativity about anything other than managing a $95 million payrol to what will probably be almost 100 losses...

they also are a team for an incredibly tiny city. There's very little competition for attention... especially in the summer.

Um, Maddux doesn't try and throw as hard as he possibly can every pitch... he spots pitches and thinks better than the batter... not exactly the same type of pitcher as what we've been using and ruining...

not a true blue then. We should hope that they win 29 in a row make the wild card and Dusty (as much as I dislike him) proves all of us wrong. That's not being a fan, that's blind loyalty. Anyone can be blindly loyal to a team. It takes a true fan to recognize what's best for a team, and hope for that.

in response to the question this thread has asked... yes.

Is it just me... or would it have made more sense to have Bynum up to try and hit earlier... and Z up now to sacrifice? Dusty has no ability to think ahead. I really hope someone in the press asks Dusty why he wanted Z to pinch hit THERE.... with 2 outs and nobody on...

Is it just me... or would it have made more sense to have Bynum up to try and hit earlier... and Z up now to sacrifice?

yeah, I thought about that too...

How are we going to pry Neifi back from the Tigers? Um... ask?

He's a better hit than most of those guys anyways. Seriously, there's nothing wrong with Zambrano pinch hitting. Frankly, I wish Dusty would've done it more often. I disagree. If the game was basically over, then Z can hit all he wants... but in a one run game, no, I'm sorry, you put a guy in there that is supposed to be one of your bats. Z is a great hitting pitcher... but I don't care what the situation is, he's not your first hitter off the bench in a 1 run game.

wait... Z pinch hit? um... what's the logic in that? Guess we have to save the rest of the bench for double switches later... I guess you can't really score with two outs anyway... might as well go to the next inning... :roll: