No, not really. I’m just aping the headline of Rick Morrissey’s latest load of crap. “Despite big mistakes, Jim Hendry deserves one more shot.” When the final pitch is thrown of the 2009 season, I don’t think we’ll actually end up calling the Cubs a “bad” team. “Disappointing,” sure. “Underachieving,” maybe. The same cannot be said for most of the media coverage of the team this year. We’ll use words like, “gave me eye cancer” to describe it.
I’m trying to come up with someone who has had a worse year than Jim Hendry, of course exempting those people who have faced death, illness, prison, Bernie Madoff’s new math and “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” in 2009.
Rick Morrissey.
I think we all can agree that, in terms of sports, Rick “Table for Two” Pitino gets a category all by himself.
If there’s one thing Rick “Table for One” Morrissey is good at (hint: there isn’t), it’s coming up with clever nicknames.
But a disastrous season puts the Cubs general manager in a league of his own too.
So many words, and not a single point so far.
Was the season bad enough that Hendry should be fired?
Well, since your headline reads, “Despite big mistakes, Jim Hendry deserves one more shot,” I’m guessing you’re going to say no. Thanks for not forcing me to read the rest of the article.
Let’s get something straight first: There are no indications he is going anywhere. In fact, just the opposite.
Which is exactly why you’re taking the stance that he deserves another year. So you can smile and nod knowingly if you end up being “right.”
He has three years left on a contract extension he signed in October — a contract the Ricketts family likely signed off on when it was going through the bidding process for ownership of the Cubs.
October? Wait just a damn minute. OCTOBER HASN’T HAPPENED YET! Unless, of course, he means October, 2008. But when has a year ever been important?
The talk is that Hendry is safe.
At least until they invent Jack-Daniels-flavored Twinkie filling.
But that hasn’t stopped public debate about whether Tom Ricketts should send him packing. Nor should it.
How many different ways can one man write, “Jim Hendry should be fired…or maybe HE SHOULDN’T!!!”
The consensus seems to be that Hendry might want to consider a new line of work and that porta-potty cleaner matches his skill set.
Wait. I thought the consensus was that Hendry’s job was safe. Observe: “There are no indications he is going anywhere. In fact, just the opposite.” Also: “The talk is that Hendry is safe.” Moreover: “I’m Rick Morrissey, and I am incapable of remembering what I typed just forty-five seconds ago.”
To take that tack means two things: A) last season’s 97-victory effort meant zilch and B) the first back-to-back postseason appearances since 1908 didn’t count for anything either.
“Take that tack”? What is he, a yachtsman? Here’s the thing about Cubs fans. We’d really like the Cubs to win a World Series. We’ve seen them win the division. We’ve seen them make the playoffs. That’s all well and good, but it turns out it’s not good enough. WE WANT BLOOD!
That’s unfair.
WE DEMAND BALL-CRUSHING PLAYOFF DEFEATS! Better?
Hendry deserves one more year to fix this mess, a mess for which he, more than anyone else in the organization, is responsible.
I think that Rod Blagojevich fella really deserves another chance to fix his mess, too.
I understand it’s hard to make an argument for his retention when forced to write the following sentence: Jim Hendry is the man who signed Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano.
It’s also hard to make an argument for his retention when one just keeps writing the same sentence over and over again and doesn’t actually- you know- make any argument for his retention.
It’s like saying, “If it weren’t for my tin ear and awful voice, I’d be Stevie Wonder.”
It’s like saying, “I’m completely unaware that it is no longer 1973.”
While the arguments raged over whether Soriano was a leadoff hitter (answer: no), Soriano was intent on proving he wasn’t a left fielder either. Bradley proved to be a poison who at the outset presented himself in sugary lozenge form. Hendry fell for the packaging. So did I.
Hendry fell for a sugary trap? I’m SHOCKED! At least this isn’t as bad as the time he ate a bunch of honey and got stuck halfway through the entrance to Rabbit’s house, so he had to wait a couple of days to lose enough weight to squeeze his way to freedom.
This argument on Hendry’s behalf is going great so far:
- Hendry should either be retained, or he shouldn’t.
- Some people are saying Hendry should be retained, and some people are saying he shouldn’t.
- Hendry signed Awfulonso Selfishiano and Mil-Tons-of-Emotional-Issues Badley.
- Hendry is as retarded as Rick Morrissey.
If Rick Morrissey were defending Jim Hendry in court, the judge himself would have already put a bullet into Hendry’s throat.
But his instincts were correct.
Or, completely incorrect. I always get those two confused.
The Cubs did need somebody else to get them over the hump after the Dodgers swept them in the 2008 playoffs. The club had a long history of soft, fan-friendly teams that never went anywhere. What was wrong with rolling the dice on a little nastiness?
Oh, let’s see:
- The nasty guy threw a live ball into the bleachers because he can’t count to three.
- The nasty guy almost got into a fistfight with his manager.
- The nasty guy is getting outslugged by Kosuke Fukudome.
- The nasty guy called the fans, a bunch of three-year-olds, a couple of teachers, and some parents racist.
- The nasty guy called his boss a dumbass, called his company a bunch of losers, and called his teammates crappy.
- The nasty guy got suspended for the final two weeks of the season for being a cock.
Nothing wrong at all with rolling the dice, I guess.
Well, now we know.
WE do. YOU, clearly, do not.
Meltdown Bradley…
God dammit, that’s awful.
…proved over and over again this season that he is toxic.
Hendry’s instincts were spot-on!
Baseball, by nature, seemed to be immune to that kind of poison.
Baseball has spent years building up an immunity to that kind of poison. Which is why the poison WAS IN BOTH CUPS ALL ALONG!
I’ve long held baseball is an individual sport in a team sport’s clothing.
I’ve long held the belief (you’re missing something, Rick) that baseball is a sport and is thus, by definition, incapable of wearing any type of clothing.
Bradley is proof the theory is dead wrong.
Congratulations, Milton. You’re the 34,683rd member of the “Disprove a Rick Morrissey Theory” club. Feel free to join our Facebook group.
In a strange, unintended way, he was the final confirmation that the Cubs lacked leadership in the clubhouse. There was nobody on the team to tell him, in no uncertain terms, and show him, in no uncertain body language, that he was out of line.
That’s on Hendry too.
This argument for Hendry keeps getting better and better. I can’t wait until the end of the article, when Rick reveals an old picture of Hendry cheering on the Sox at Comiskey Park while dressed as Hitler.
But there’s a body of work to consider here, not just the butt-ugly side.
Journalism!
Keeping Hendry would demonstrate that pulling off the trades that brought Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez to the Cubs had substance. Keeping him would demonstrate the Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly signings meant something.
Keeping him would demonstrate that it’s nice that he acquired three players in his tenure that aren’t total fucking losers. And also Ryan Dempster.
Keeping Hendry would demonstrate there’s another approach besides the knee-jerk one. And it would say the window of opportunity is still open a crack for the guy who created the window.
If we could just open the window a bit more, we could kick him right out of it.
Hendry needs to have an All-Star year in 2010, and he’s going to have to do it with his hands tied.
Why? Is he entering a pie-eating contest?
For the most part, he is stuck with the roster he built. There will not be a lot of wiggle room, just a lot of hanging room.
Move along, everyone. I’m pretty sure he’s just talking about Hendry’s penis.
He has been betrayed by many people.
Especially the people at Hanes. “One size fits all” my ass!
He had given…
Some might say, “He gave…”
…huge contracts to Soriano and Carlos Zambrano and received very little in return in 2009. They owe him.
Indeed. They have a contractual duty to perform their baseball activities to the best of their abilities. In exchange, the Chicago Cubs have a contractual duty to compensate them for their performance.
Morrissey, on the other hand, owes me 30 minutes of my life back.
He needs Soriano to get remedial tutoring on playing left field.
I’m pretty sure he knows he’s supposed to squeeze the ball when it hits his mitt, which has been the biggest issue this year. Maybe he was distracted by the pain in his knee that he was playing with all year. Nah. “Soriano sucks!” jokes are way easier.
He needs to impress on Zambrano that he’s on the verge of being remembered as a waste of talent.
What should he say when Zambrano caves in his chest, rips out his still-beating heart, and shows it to him?
He needs Geovany Soto to bounce back.
With all the blubber he’s packed on, I don’t think he’s going to bounce anywhere.
He needs Carlos Marmol to figure things out.
Like…calculus?
He needs to get his head examined for the Kevin Gregg acquisition.
Good thing Rick had time to point out that Hendry might be psychotic before he wrapped up his pro-Hendry article.
He needs to have a heart-to-heart with Lou Piniella and ask him if he truly wants to be the manager of the Cubs in 2010, seeing as how it sure didn’t seem as if he wanted to be the manager in 2009. If the answer is “yes,” Hendry better have a winning team. Piniella is the perfect manager for a front-running club and the wrong manager for anything less.
Lou is, indeed, a terrific manager when his team is in first place. When his team is not in first place, on the other hand, sprites fly in from the Everglades near Lou’s home, burrow into his ears, and remove his terrificness, rendering him terrible. He should be more consistent, like Rick Morrissey, who is just terrible all the time.
For the sake of righting a wrong and shutting everyone up, Hendry needs to re-sign Mark DeRosa.
If you promise to stop writing forever and shut up if they re-sign DeRosa, I’m all for it.
That’s a lot of needs. The odds are against him. But he has earned one more shot.
That’s it? That’s the whole article? I mean, THANK GOD, but shouldn’t an article suggesting Hendry deserves another shot spend more time making an actual argument about why he deserves another shot than time ripping on Hendry?
I think Rick deserves another shot at this article. After all, he doesn’t really understand baseball, he’s a terrible writer, and he makes his readers dumber.
