If my math is right, with one more win over the Cardinals in four tries, the Cubs will win the season series against their most loathed rival. Further proof that season series mean nothing is that if the Cubs closed one eye and stared hard at the horizon they might be able to see the Cardinals in the standings.
Last night it was Glendon Rusch continuing his mastery of the Satanic Fowl with a near no-hitter. Corey Patterson even hit a home run. That’s cute. I’ll even pretend to try to care.
Of more troubling immediacy is a report in Monday’s Sun-Times by the always unreliable Mike Kiley that the Cubs are preparing two-year contract extensions for the Dustbag and Jim Hendry.
This brings to mind one of Dusty’s favorite, tired, worn out hackneyed sayings. He says it whenever a media member has the temerity to challenge him about why he doesn’t play younger players more often. He says, “We’re in the earn it business, not the give it business.”
So if the Cubs offered Dusty a two-year contract extension, by his own logic, he’d have to turn it down, right? After all, what has he done to earn it? Anything? I’m sure he’ll point to the back-to-back winning seasons and mumble something about that not happening in 30 years at Wrigley. He probably wouldn’t point to the fact he botched a five-outs from the World Series situation in 2003, or that he rode a flaming corpse of a team into the ground in the final eight days of the 2004 season or that he’s taken a $100 million payroll in 2005 and steered it clear of contention. Probably not.
If he really believes in earn it, rather than give it, he’d turn down an extension and offer to “earn one” in 2006. Even better, he’d turn it down and offer to let somebody else earn it in 2006.
As for Hendry, he’ll never admit out loud why he hired Dusty in the first place. It wasn’t about hiring the best man for the job, it was about altering the perception that the Cubs couldn’t get a big-name to take their job. What Jim fails to realize is that even Cubs fans can figure out that if you pay a guy enough, he’ll do just about anything and take just about any job. So really, all he proved was that he had no clue what his team needed in a manager. Why you tout and trumpet your farm system and then hire a guy with a long, illustrious history of refusing to use young players is beyond comprehension. So by all means, please give Hendry an unnecessary extension, too. It’ll keep him well fed when he’s sitting in box seats at Diamondbacks games “scouting” with Ed Lynch and cashing Cubs’ checks to not be the GM anymore. That’ll be great.
