The Cubs are in Cincinnati to take on Dusty Baker’s Reds, which always reminds me how glad I am that they are not “Dusty Baker’s Cubs.” The two managers prior to Lou Piniella were back-to-back dumbasses. So, let’s put them in the Fukudome.
 |
VS. |  |
| Dusty Baker | Don Baylor |
You forgot Bruce Kimm, but I forgive you. :)
NO CONTEST. Remember how glad we were to get Dusty??
Methinks, anybody who voted for Dusty Baker became a Cubs fan in 2003.
Don. Baylor. Was. Retawded.
This isn’t even a contest in my world.
Baylor had a sub-par team. Rusty had a team that ranked in the top $$$ spenders each of years he managed. No contest. Rusty didn’t know WTF he was doing. How stupid do you have to be have someone pinch-hit and not let the umpire know about it. His face should be in the dictionary under Stupidity.
Yeah, the Cubs didn’t pay for players OR managers when they hired Baylor. He fit the team perfectly!
:D
@Moon – Baylor was actually a pretty marquis hiring. Don’t forget he was the 1995 NL Manager of the Year, for whatever that’s worth. If I recall correctly, several teams were inexplicably after him.
I can honestly say no manager ever had as big an impact on my career as did Dusty, and no other manager ever will@!
Kerm, FWIW, that would be “marquee”, as in “The theater marquee listed the main attractions of the evening performance”, as opposed to a French nobleman “Marquis”.
Not to be a picky A-hole — just channeling my inner English teacher.
I’m not entirely positive, but I read Kermit’s comment as a “Jason Marquis” type of trade… am I right guys?
Just for the sake of completeness –
“mar·quee [ maar KEE ]
adjective
Definition:
having public appeal: having public appeal or considered in connection with public appeal
e.g., a team with no marquee names
e.g., a star with great marquee value
[Late 17th century. Alteration of French marquise "canopy over a nobleman's tent" (see marquise)]”
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_1861628501/marquee.html
I understood Kerm as saying that the Baylor hiring in 2000 was considered to have public appeal, as he had won a Manager of the Year award in 1995 and several teams were inexplicably after him.
Now I’ve really beaten this minor point into the ground.
They both sucked. But unlike disco stu. Dusto advertised his stupidity. I don’t remember baylor saying ridicoulous things like Dusto.
Actually, I meant it was a hiring that was particularly pleasing to the Marquis de Sade.
Baylor was probably the most sought after candidate in that particular off season, so it wasn’t just a hire out of left field.
Don Baylor, a thousand times over.
Ok, doesn’t Dusty hold the record for most times a team batted out of order under his watch? Dusty walked into a situation with a team ready to go off, and ran them into the ground up to their necks, put a bucket of feces in front of their faces, and proceeded to flick toothpicks at their eyes.
Gotta go with the Dustbucket. Baylor sucked, but it was consistent with the suckage I’d gotten used to as a Cub fan. Dusty’s teams were much more talented, yet for all the talk of him being a “player’s manager”, he didn’t get the best out of his team. The fact that Dusty had players who called up to the announcing booth/threatened the play by player announcers showed how little control he had over that clubhouse. The Cubs won the division in 2007 and even if Baker had had the talent Hendry acquired in the offseason, like Soriano, Lily, DeRosa, etc, Baker still would have found a way to fuck it up. Lou got the best out of the guys on 2007 and 2008 and systematically got rid of anyone who didn’t fit his philosophy. Baker seemed to let the players run the show and that along with his many managerial blunders, cost the Cubs their chance to compete. He was 5 outs away from the WS and managed those last two games like the Cubs were already in it. At least Baylor never got that close to the prize only to fuck it up. Also Baylor never seemed as crazily superstitious as Baker, what with the holy water and all the other nonsense Dusty trotted out there. I’d take Baylor over Baker any day, although I’m damn glad we have Sweet Uncle Lou.
And one more thing-even Jim Riggleman could have gone to the World Series with the team Dusty was blessed with from 2003-2004. Jesus.
Just goes to show how screwed up the Cubs front office is, we could have had Skip instead of either of these two incompetents.
Well played. I would guess that the last 101 years have also been particularly pleasing to the Marquis de Sade. Tell me again, how did I happen to get sucked into being a Cubs fan? Oh yeah. It had something to do with the memory of a deceased father. ~Sigh~
I have to agree with all the Dusty haters.
Don Baylor had a team destined to finish last forever.
There was little to no talent as I recall.
Dusty, well what can I say?
How many of you were screaming at the TV to get Prior out of there after the Alou blowup at Bartman? There were some decent options in the bullpen, not to mention he could have thrown Clement out there for a couple of innings.
The Dusty mantra is I didn’t do anything wrong, blame the other guy.
I’m looking at this Fukudome as ‘if you knew then, what you know now’ who would you choose?
Forget about the cashe Dusty had coming in here.
Dusty on Sunday’s game:
“We should’ve won three or four times,” Baker said. “If you don’t win them when you’re supposed to, most of the time you don’t.”
I voted Dusty but I’ll be honest, I blocked out much of the Baylor era while mired in the Farnsworthian glut of beer and pussy that was my Junior/Senior years in high school. Well, I was thinking about pussy, at least.
I second that, ChuckDickens.