Dude, best 147 pitches I've seen all week.  Dude.In Friday’s Tribune, Teddy Greenstein caught up with everybody’s favorite deposed nitwit, Dusty Baker. Dusty has always fancied himself as somewhat of a renaissance man, and he touched on all of this plans for his life outside baseball.

He’s pretty sure that it’s going to be a short stay out of the manager’s office, and given the paucity of “proven” managers out there, Dusty’s probably right.

Cubs’ fans can at least be safe in the knowledge that this overrated, delusional, perpetual “victim” can go about the rest of his time in the game screwing up somebody else’s franchise.

Or is that Franchise? Either way, good riddance.

The interview apparently started (the questions are footnoted at the end of the article, which is weird, but then, this format was created by Steve Rosenbloom so it’s supposed to be “edgy” when in fact it’s just lame) with Teddy asking Dusty about the standing ovation he got recently at a Giants’ game.

I don’t know, man, they kept applauding, and I just waved. (1) To tell you the truth, it makes you feel good. This is my home.

I don’t think in terms of what would happen in Chicago versus [San Francisco]. It’s probably a tale of two cities. You wish you were respected and liked everywhere, but I’m probably three out of four, with Oakland and L.A. It’s the first time I’ve sort of been scorned, and it wakes you up, you know?

Of course they kept applauding, they’re glad you left and they want to impress upon you how glad they are that you left.

“Tale of two cities?” Well, you got the first twelve words of that right. Too bad the Cubs ended up on the worst of times half.

This time off has been good for me. The game can totally encompass you, especially when things are going badly. That’s what happened to me. I went there to win, did the best I could, and things didn’t turn out right, but it doesn’t make you any less of person, a man or a manager. How many managers have had only good runs? Other than Tommy Lasorda, I don’t know many. Look at Tony La Russa, Joe Torre, Bobby Cox … even the great Casey Stengel got fired.

By God, you’re right, even the great Casey Stengel got fired. Now all you have to do is win seven World Series and nine more pennants and you’ll be even!

I’ll be better next time. I’m definitely stronger and tougher. I can handle anything now after being in Chicago.

Yeah, it must be awful to have to manage a team where you get way too much input into player acquisitions and have to go to work for a sold out home game every day. That sounds like a really rough gig. It’s not like you have 12 million dollars to fall back on from those trying times. Oh, wait…

Then Teddy asked Dusty about the Cubs making lots of moves in the offseason.

There were times I’d wake up and be angry. (2) I had to make myself not think about it. It’s their money and they can do what they want to do. They certainly reloaded. I would have loved to have that. But, hey, for whatever reason, I knew my days were limited.

Wait a minute. The Cubs never went out and got you any players did they, Dusty? It’s not like you had three All-Star starting pitchers all under the age of 28. It’s not like they traded Hee Seop Choi to get Derrek Lee. They didn’t trade for Nomar Garciaparra while you were there. They didn’t sign Greg Maddux. Nope, they never reloaded for you. And they sure as hell didn’t just hand you Kenny Lofton and Aramis Ramirez right in the middle of the the playoff hunt in 2003. Keep complaining, because you have such an airtight case.

I knew [I would be replaced] sometime after Greg Maddux was gone.We didn’t reload at all when everybody got hurt. I was sort of told: ‘Play the youngs, try not to overpitch [Scott] Eyre and [Bob] Howry and don’t worry yourself to death over wins and losses.’ I had never been told anything like that at any level.

You’re pretty perceptive, then. You didn’t know you were going to be kicked down the street until July 31, 2006 when you were 43-62 and 19 games out of first place?

It’s nice that they told you not to overpitch Eyre and Howry when they both had two years left on their contracts and the team was so far out of first place that you needed a telescope to see the rest of the NL Central. You’d think common sense would tell you not to overpitch anybody when you have nothing to play for. But not only did you not know that, apparently you were offended by the concept.

Teddy then asked Dusty if Jim Hendry told him that last bit about playing youngsters and not overpitching his $20 million middle relief tandem. Dusty said.

Just … I was told.

So, in other words, no.

By the way, Dusty, if you were told that about Howry and Eyre, that wouldn’t have helped your case for returning. While Eyre was unavailable for a big chunk of August with a sore leg, you still found a way to use him 20 times in the final two months. You used Howry 27 times, and get this–August (you know the month after July–the month after you were supposedly told not to abuse him) you pitched Howry for more innings than you had in any month all year. By the way, it’s great to see how well these two are doing one year removed from having you “protect” them.

I feel like a utility man. (4) I do [games on] radio, TV, studio, remote studio. I don’t like to watch myself on TV, but they gave me tapes. I’m critical of myself, like you stuttered or didn’t get your point across clearly or didn’t make eye contact with the camera.

We’ve got something in common, I don’t like watching you on TV, either. By the way, I can barely see your wristbands under your suit coat. Good luck making eye contact with the camera since it doesn’t have any…you know…eyes.

It’s different now. I park in the media lot, not the players’ or managers’ lot. And now that I travel commercial, I can appreciate how it was. You carry your own bags and have to pay an extra 100 bucks if they’re too heavy. I have size 13s, so I can get up over 100 pounds in a hurry. I bring five or six or seven pairs of shoes with me. As a kid, I had only one pair of dress shoes and tennis shoes. Now I don’t like wearing the same pair two days in a row.

Nothing makes a guy more relate-able to average fans than complaining about paying $100 extra per bag so you can pack seven pairs of shoes for a three day trip to Bristol, Connecticut. You’re a man of the people, all right.

My friends say I’m the busiest unemployed guy they’ve ever seen. My dad is 82 and had a cataract and glaucoma operation, so I’ve been driving him around. I’ve gone turkey hunting. I get to throw BP to my son’s Little League team and take him to tae kwon do tournaments.

You do realize that since you have a job with ESPN that you’re not unemployed, right. That’s probably why you’re busy. I hope you haven’t actually filed for unemployment because then you’d have to lie about your ESPN money on your taxes and you don’t want to have to take another managerial job just to pay back the tax man. Wait…what happened before you came to the Cubs, again?

I went to the NCAA tournament in Sacramento and San Jose and got to see the Warriors the other night. Oh, dude, it was the best. Game 4 of the Warriors and Dallas. It was the first thing that made me really, really want to manage again.

Who did you want to manage, the Warriors or the Mavericks? You know those are basketball teams, right?

I’m building a house [near Sacramento] and putting solar panels on my roof. I’m also dabbling in a vineyard. I have an acre and a half of grapes and will start bottling some wines in a year and a half when the grapes mature. My daughter will come up with the label. I’m doing some public speaking, and ESPN has been cool. And I’m going to take my son, my dad, Keena Turner, Ronnie Lott. We’ll do a father-grandfather-son fishing trip to Alaska. I always said in my first summer out of the game, I’d go to Alaska and Maine. It’s powerful stuff.

If you handle your wine like you did your players, those grapes will be really, really mature. I’ll bet in 2047 we can all sit down and enjoy a lovely bottle of Forever Neifi Pinot Noir.

You’re going on a father-grandfather-son fishing trip with Ronnie Lott and Keena Turner? What, were Huey Lewis, the News, Joe Barry Carroll and Karl Malden all unavailable?

Dusty was asked about managing again.

I’ll get down there someday. (5) I’m in no hurry. When the right thing comes along, yeah, because I still have too much to do, too much to accomplish. I look at Bobby Cox, and I want to manage that long. I’m halfway to that–14 years to 28. I think you actually get better when you get into your late 50s. The spirit grows, your confidence grows.

You realize that you’ll be 58 in June, right? If you’re in no hurry, and next season is the last one you’ll have in your late 50s, sounds like you’re just wrong. Again.

I have a game at Sox park. It’s June 4: Yankees-White Sox. At this point I’m not ready to [call a game at Wrigley]. I don’t need any more abuse, you know what I mean? I was booed and jeered enough. You use every experience to your advantage to learn. Some you’d just as soon forget; some you don’t. But it wasn’t all bad.

I love how you had to identify both teams that will be playing at “Sox park” because I’m sure most of us thought it’d be a Yankees-Dodgers game. And don’t flatter yourself about getting booed and jeered if you came back to Wrigley. After we got done throwing poop at your rental car, we’d leave you alone and get back to booing and jeering Will Ohman.

And, if “it wasn’t all bad,” you certainly do seem to have forgotten whatever good stuff there was.

Teddy’s questions: 1: On receiving a standing ovation during Sunday’s game at San Francisco’s AT&T Park.
2: The Cubs’ off-season spending spree.
3: Did general manager Jim Hendry tell you that?
4: His ESPN work.
5: On his return to managing.