Nuff said.

Ricketts and the red & blue to the promised land in ’09!

upon his 2002 fall hiring.

After the “incident” in the 8th inning, all I kept asking everyone around me, was where the hell was Dusty? Even after the 1st guy got on afterwards, where was he???

ALL sports utilize the “timeout” method to break momentum, even to the point in football to “freeze” the kicker before a game-altering FG attempt. OK, this wasn’t a “timeout” but WHERE WAS DUSTY? Would it have changed anything? Can’t tell, but doing nothing and then watching the touchdown and 2-pt conversion made me ill.

IIRC, Rothschild did go out to the mound after the next pitch (ball 4). Prior had shown much more poise all season long — there was no reason to think that this would be different. And, if Alex Gonzalez cleanly fields a routine ground ball, this discussion never takes place.

Baker lost the team in 2004. There is no question of that. I’ve said that many times, and posted that several times here. Instead of telling his team to “Shut the #%^@ up and play ball”, he was a ring leader in the whining. His habit of playing favorites (literally and figuratively) hurt the team in 2005 and 2006, and not bringing him back was the right move.

However, I remain convinced that no one would have gotten them as far as he did in 2003 — and no way will I blame game 6 on him.

…Dusty did introduce me to these toothpicks in Wojciechowski’s book Cubs Nation. I love those toothpicks. Greatest thing Dusty ever gave me.

Dan

defended Dusty for too long. I put a lot of the blame on Hendry for giving him little to work with and not putting his foot down in acquiring players that have been on your can of worms list. The incident of not going to the mound in that famous inning was the killer for Dusty. Had we kept the damage minimal, we may have made the promised land.

Which quote is not Dusty’s?

1. "They police themselves, but they don’t police themselves the way we used to police ourselves."

2. "I talked to him last night, and he said this is the first time he’s been in a playoff situation. He’s looking forward to it, and he told me he was sorry he didn’t help us and play better while he was here. I told him to enjoy it —he picked up a lot of games in the standings."

3. "They found every hole. We helped them with a couple of errors, and we weren’t doing it offensively."

4. "You can tell your uncle stuff that you could not tell your dad. That is kind of the role of an uncle. I feel very much like a father sometimes but sometimes I feel like a teammate."

at managing a pitching staff in the history of baseball

I defended Dusty for way too long too. After 2003 I got spoiled, I had high hopes as all of us had and yes any mention of game 6 opens old wounds that have yet to fully heal.

2004 was a different story, great team on paper of course and I do blame Dusty for the whole collapse. After that he was done. Enuff said.

Mark Prior pitch counts in Sep 2003

Sep 1: 130 Pitches (8 innings, in a game that was 6-0 after the 5th)
Sep 6: 129 Pitches (7 innings)
Sep 11: 110 Pitches (in 5.2 innings)
Sep 16: 124 Pitches (in 8.2 innings)
Sep 21: 131 Pitches (in 7.2 innings)
Sep 27: 133 Pitched (in 6.2 innings)

Not only that, but it was his first full year pitching in the majors.

It connects with many superstitious ball player and sport writer lore but it falls on its face when it comes to reality.

Momentum is a funny thing, it turns on a dime and tactical coaching/managing is about recognizing this at moments of a critical juncture….Once that incident happened Baker had to take the pressure off his players….all of them.

He first should have gone out and argued the dickens with the umps….taking the pressure off of Alou….blame the umps….

Then gone to the mound and done the old Gene Hackman bit in the movie Hoosiers and get Prior and his ball club refocused. Should have told Priot strike out the putce, but no Baker sat hoping for devine intervention or some voodoo dust or something

Was the wrong choice, when SF fired him, he should not have been interview for starters. He IS one of the best at preparing for a game, but between the white lines he is horrible.

This can of worms (on a toothpick) is a real sour one for many here I am sure. Dusty gets blamed for some things he does not deserve, but there is a lot he is more than derserving for.

It could possibly be one of the worst nights of my life. I could not fall asleep that night replaying in my head that 8th inning.

This inning I watched again on YouTube a couple years ago and had to stop watching because it was too painful. I am not sure if it is still there, I am afraid to look.

…I blame the ump for not calling fan interference.

Can anyone definitively say the foul ball was NOT in the field of play when Bartman and friends reached out and touched it? I don’t believe there was an “end zone line” camera angle which would have easily shown if the ball ‘broke the plane’ or not. But every replay and photo I’ve seen, it sure looks like the fans were reaching out past the wall and definitely interfered with Moises’ chance to catch the ball.

I respect most folks’ opinions here, so I welcome your thoughts and recollections here. Probably won’t change my mind, but I’d like to hear what others think.

dusty made a lot of us sound like idiots in defending him, i remember having to explain the clog the bases comments to my then g/f at the time without making it sound ridiculous and stupid, one of my greater accomplishments, now I spout to the same girl about rc/27 and OBP, thank god we finally did something and stopped giving him a pass for ‘how far’ he took us one year.

I was screaming at the TV when Dusty did not replace Kerry Wood with Matt Clement in the fifth inning when the Marlins retook the lead. Baker left Wood in that game way too long. McKeon didn’t waste any time putting Josh Beckett in that game for Florida.

He is the one who blew it. An easy double play ball that would have ended the inning, even after the foul ball “debacle.”

As for Dusty, I gave up on the guy in 2004, and if you look at the team, our fielding stats got worse each year. It was clear that Dusty lost control of the team and was not interested in keeping his players sharp. I for one, hated all the mental errors (fielding and base running) that seemed to get worse with each day that Dusty ran the team.

The guy was a jerk who just sucked on toothpicks and ran out his contract. The slowly declining quality of the team’s play proved this (to me).

Though I wish it never had to be written, this was the best “Can of Worms” piece you wrote. Sometimes, so little words can say so much.

One thing though…. i’m a bit saddened your closing your can. We never got to do LARRY HIMES….

Cubs win that game… they would’ve won the world series. Whoever came out of the National League was going to win the World Series. It was the NL’s year and it should’ve been the Cubs…damn it it should’ve be us.

we still had Wood to go in game 7. Bottom line is the managers don’t play the game, the players do. This loss is on the players, not Dusty.

IMO the biggest issue I had with him was the “us against the world” mentality that he encouraged. He bred an atmosphere where no one was responsible for anything and whenever anyone asked him a substantive question that tried to shed light on problems he’d respond with a “I don’t know, dude, man…”. He was reactive, not proactive, and his reactions almost always focused away from the problem to lift the burden on his players. Dusty was the example of the extreme players manager and was the ultimate manager for the steroid era.

This is so depressing. We need some baseball. Fast.

NEVER do what he did…..

In the World Series, he took the game ball, and gave it to the pitcher who was leaving the game. It maybe superstitious B.S. but it is something you do not do in a sport full of players who have goofy routines, and superstitions to prepare.

how much of an on the field difference is there between Dusty and Lou? One of the grievances against Dusty is that he over uses his starting pitchers, but Lou isn’t exactly easy on young pitchers. I read an article on baseballperspcetus about Lou, (from his Seattle days), and it said that young pitchers are in trouble if Lou doesn’t like them and it is the kiss of death if he does, because he will ride a good young pitcher to death, the article was talking about Freddie Garcia. Garcia threw 201 innings in his rookie season. Lou hasn’t exactly been easy on Zambrano. Plus I would hate to be a young player under Lou, because he has no patients. It seems that he and Dusty share many negatives.

Lou is also an “old school” guy like Dusty. Lou isn’t real into stats and what not. Lou wouldn’t let the antics around the 2004 team occur, like Dusty did. I remember being flabbergasted when Mercker came out of the dugout, and than being completely shocked when Dusty allowed Mercker to call up to the booth. I would have told Mercker that he is paid to pitch while Steve Stone and Chip Carey are paid to talk about the game.

The only thing I have to say on this subject is that Dusty Baker may suck, but he did help change the culture here and make us realize that the Cubs could win.
Of course he then imploded our pitching staff.

Are two of the same when you think about it. Players “love” to play for them both. IMO it is because they are not held responsible, and their ego are gently massaged by them both. Neither can make an adjustment, both stick to their personal favorite players too long, blah, blah, blah

sitting with freinds watching that game. We were talking about how long Prior would go. I said then and still think it now that they should have gotten Wood up and ready. I heard all about what about game 7. My point was, wood was the best thing we had next to prior that year. You have a lead and who better to go out and start the 7 or 8 then wood. his adreniline would have carried him easily. I always wondered what might have happend if wood would have started the 8th. You had a lead and we needed to end it then and there.

But then again, what do i know.

But how much blame being placed on Dusty is not his fault, and is placed on him due to needing someone or something to blame? He did not drop the ball at SS. He did not throw a hissy fit when a fan touched the ball. Of course these are only two examples, adn there are a lot of things to blame Dusty for. But had we won in 03, would it have mattered how many times he started Macias the next season, or how many times he hit and ran, or bunted with Neifi in the 9th with 2 outs (that one STILL makes me laugh).

just thinking outloud…….should this be in a peavy/roberts thread?

Dusty Baker is the gargantuan nightcrawler at the bottom of the can? The man who should bear the brunt of our collective misery? The comments go on and on, as any good producer would hope, but I stopped reading them at the point where somebody posted that picture of the foul ball. Certainly, Baker bears some responsibilty for the Cubs’ most recent spectacular collapse but there’s also:

this past October…
and Jim Frey deciding to save Sutcliffe for Game 1 of the WS in ‘84
and Durocher never giving anybody a day off in ’69
and Grimm running Borowy out there for Game 7 in ’45
and Wilson losing a ball in the sun in ’29
and Kling’s signals being stolen in 1910…the 1909 team winning 100 games but somehow not the pennant…and wouldn’t ya know it, we’re right back to 1908.

So it goes.

For me, the one person that bears the most blame for the fact that the Cubs have played 100 consecutive seasons without a title is Philip K. Wrigley. And the most painful part of that assignment is that, absent P.K., most of us would never have known that utterly sublime feeling, sitting in the sun on a summer afternoon, talking to our fathers.

I was eleven years old (but perhaps the biggest Cubs fan you could possibly be at that age), watching with my grandpa, grandma, uncle, dad, and mother. We really thought this was it, and for most of the game, it was. Until that dreaded incident.

My grandpa kept asking “Why isn’t Dusty going out there? Why are they keeping him in there?” All legit questions, because Prior was still young and never had to deal with something like that before (let alone on 110+ some odd pitches) and needed to be relaxed. Joe Borowski was up in the pen who was consistent for us all year, I’m sure he was set to go after the whole incident.

Of course, none of what should’ve happened, happened. And we were all stunned at how the whole thing unfolded (not to mention, seeing the look on my grandfather’s face, after thinking maybe he’d finally catch a break as a fan, a look I never wanted to see again being the biggest Cubs fan I ever had the luxury of knowing). The sheer feeling of shock and utter disbelief can’t be put into terms. Nobody hardly spoke for the rest of that night, and I do recall all feeling of “belief” gone after that inning, despite still having a chance with Game 7.

Being forgiving, I gave Dusty a second chance in 2004, which he proceeded to screw up even worse. I personally loved Chip and Steve, the only voices I was familiar with as a Cubs fan all my life (except I DID have Harry in my first couple seasons). The fact that he drove them out of town was one of the most childish things I’d seen in the sport. Of course it wasn’t all him; Alou and Mercker were just as bad, and the fact that he didn’t control it was a HUGE error on his judgement. Instead, he joined them.

Like we’re supposed to believe the broadcasters were responsible for the team not getting the job done in the way they should have? Yeah, right. I believe Steve said that, on the day they lost a chance at Wild Card berth (another day I’ll never forget), the team should’ve won the Wild Card by six or seven games, and kept making excuses for their mistakes instead of fixing them. He was dead right, and still is. It’s why I can’t even stomach the THOUGHT of that 2004 team these days anymore. From the day Steve resigned, I pretty much despised Dusty as a manager, but not just because of Steve. It was proof that Dusty was willing to make up excuses for his players just so he or they don’t have to take the blame, which to me, is pathetic.

That whole thing, along with the 2003 NLCS catastrophe, really made me uninterested for the 2005 and 2006 seasons (had nothing to do with subpar campaigns). Those things, as well as my grandfather’s passing in summer 2005 (baseball was always our central interest, he taught me just about everything), made it very difficult for me to watch Cubs games until 3/4s of the way through 2006, the only time that’s ever happened to me in my life.

So Dusty has really left a negative impact on me as a Cubs fan, and I really can’t stand anything that has to do with him. I usually come to the Cubs to seek solace and I couldn’t even do THAT anymore because of the bitterness I had towards him. That may be childish, but whatever. Just glad that era was over two seasons ago…

and afterward in his years as the Cubs boss. The FACT remains that the Bartman ball was clearly fan interference. The ump didn’t get his butt down the line to make the call correctly. It should have been ruled fan interference and resulted in an out, per the rulebook. Dusty has a great track record, despite the demonizing of him on the post. He’s a winning manager, and a players’ manager- who knows how to get the best out of what he is given. It was a shameful display the way Dusty was run out of town, even though it was clearly his time to go.

Don’t forget had Bako not allowed the passed ball, there would not have been a man on second base.

Of course, I still fault Baker for sitting on his ass, chewing is damn toothpick, while Alou cried like a baby and Prior unraveled.