By Steve Rhodes

1. The Onion was right.
2. Baker stinks.
3. In its Dusty Baker entry, Wikipedia includes these frequent criticisms of the embattled Cubs manager:
* Overuse of starting pitchers, possibly leading to short-term and chronic injury (see: Mark Prior, Kerry Wood, Russ Ortiz).
* Handling rookie players poorly, putting them in positions to fail or unfairly passing them over in favor of older players.
* Ignoring statistics when filling out the lineups. For example, in a good portion of 2005 he put Corey Patterson and Neifi Perez in the top of the batting order, despite having two of the worst on base percentages on the team.
* Lacking focus
* Earning the nickname “double switch dusty” Baker often overlooks that a pinch hitter doesn’t need to be placed in the field.
* Baker almost never comes out of the dugout to back up a ballplayer on a disputed call.
4. Dusty Baker is apparently still hawking a “You Can Teach Hitting” product line. The site still has video of one of his more successful students, Corey Patterson, on it.
5. Dusty Baker likened to former FEMA director.

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Posted on May 15, 2006

By Jay Wagner

The rain fell like big wads of spit on Saturday, the day Joe Hicks returned to Des Moines to be honored for his hitting prowess two decades ago. Hicks got used to waiting in the late 1980s, when his record-setting performance as an Iowa Cub failed to stir the interest of the front office in Chicago, who already had an offensive-minded player named Leon Durham playing first base.
So maybe it was fitting that Hicks never got a chance to throw out the first pitch or to sign autographs for the few hundred fans between games of a doubleheader on Joe Hicks Day. Hicks’ career was all about waiting.
When he barreled into the press room on Saturday with his wife, Karla, and kids Michael and Jodi, nobody took much notice. The beat reporter from the Des Moines Register was watching the pro football draft on ESPN and most of the employees seeking refuge from the rain were more interested in the big tins of pasta the organization had set out than they were in Hicks.
Still, it’s one of those mysteries of baseball that Hicks never even got a whiff of The Show. Hell, the I-Cub record book wouldn’t be the same without him. He hit more home runs and collected more RBIs than any player in franchise history; collected the third-most hits (1661); the fifth-most doubles (85); and the fourth-most runs scored (244) in the 25-year history of the club.

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Posted on May 4, 2006