And it isn't Joe Girardi.Nope. In fact, this decision will save ME lots of money next year.
According to what I just saw on ESPNNews, the Reds on Monday will officially hire Dusty Baker as their next manager. Some people out there might say, gosh, he has won 1100 games, he went to a World Series, muliple manager of the year. Why are you so ticked, Mark?
OK, here goes:
1. He doesn't play young ballplayers and overfavors veterans in the lineup--So, Joey Votto, Jay Bruce, grab some pine. Say hello to more Scott Hatteberg (who I like) and Jorge Cantu (oh boy).
2. He allows star players to elevate themselves above everyone else, creating a class divide in the clubhouse--see Bonds, Barry; Kent, Jeff; Sosa, Sammy.
3. Wherever he goes, steroids follow...again, see Sosa, Sammy; Bonds, Barry.
4. He kills young pitchers....see Wood, Kerry; Prior, Mark...both of whom had multiple +140 pitch games during his regime, and both have never been the same since Baker was their manager.
5. He sucks at game management. Ask the Giants and Cubs in their World Series and playoff runs. He can't manage a pitching staff or the flow of a game.
6. He is a racist. He once said darker skinned blacks were better conditioned than whites to handle long summer days.
7. He is a Dodger. To those of you who don't know, Reds fans hate Dodgers. Even though the rivalry has faded with realignment, Reds fans old enough to remember the old National League West hate the Dodgers and always will.
Really, the most important reasons are 1-4 for me. The Reds are a young team, they have young pitchers coming up, and they need to start playing the young guys. Also, this team already has supertars with bad attitudes (see fatass Adam Dunn and his parents), they don't need Dusty Baker ruining Brandon Phillips and the other guys by creating a clubhouse divide.
And if I were Homer Bailey, I am hoping for a trade. I really do want to have a career someday, and Dusty Baker is a career killer if you are a young pitcher.
So, I am done. The Reds will get no money out of me next year. They will get no viewership on TV from me, either. I will not step foot into GABP as long as the stench of Dusty Baker remains with this team. I would have rather they kept Pete McKanin. But no, let's hire some washed up manager who can't even broadcast on ESPN. Let's hire the guy who destroyed two of the most promising young pitchers of the 1990s, Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. Let's hire the guy who allowed Barry Bonds to become even more of an egomaniac, and who turned a blind eye to Bonds and Sosa.
Color me disappointed in Castellini and Krivsky. I find it disturbing that a team that said it would bring championship baseball back brings a guy known for choking as a manager. And over 2/3 of Reds fans surveyed on various sites on the internet said they did not want Baker. So, thanks for listening, arseholes. Take your joke of an organization and sell it to a winner, like Mark Cuban.
This reeks of stupid thinking. I bet the Reds thought, hey look at the Bengals. They hired a black guy. He got them to .500 and the place is selling out. If we hire a black guy, then we will sell the place out, too....Give me a freakin' break. I just threw up.
This team will go backwards, not forwards, in the long term. Young arms will be destroyed, the young talent shipped off, and we will be left with garbage....The Reds are an embarrassment.
EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS STORY WILL STAY AT THE TOP ALL DAY....IN MEMORY OF THE CINCINNATI REDS BASEBALL CLUB, AND HOMER BAILEY'S ARM...originally posted @11:05pm, 10/13/07
