Dusty Baker won’t have much of a problem living up to expectations in Chicago as long as he ends the Cubs’ World Series drought, fixes the potholes on the Eisenhower Expressway and has the side streets cleared the morning after the first snowstorm.
Although the new Cubs manager proclaimed Friday that he doesn’t do miracles, and although the Cubs are coming off a 95-loss season, Baker’s appointment has Cubs fans thinking big.
Are Baker’s shoulders big enough to handle the great expectations that will be thrust upon him?
“It doesn’t matter if it’s baseball, basketball or football, the pressure of winning is always there,” said Gary Matthews, a close friend of Baker’s who is expected to be named the Cubs’ hitting coach.
“Dusty is not the first guy to make a move like this. Mike Holmgren, how long has he been with the Seahawks now? When he left Green Bay, he was supposed to turn the [Seattle] franchise around, and I remember Terry Bradshaw asking him, `Are you going to be taking Brett Favre with you?'”
Like Holmgren, Baker will have to have the horses to bring home a winner in Chicago. Baker and general manager Jim Hendry will sit down Tuesday after Baker’s introductory news conference to discuss which available players they like and can be accommodated within Hendry’s budget.
Baker said he hopes to have his coaching staff in place quickly, naming Matthews, Dick Pole, Sonny Jackson and Gene Clines as possibilities. Pitching coach Larry Rothschild, still under contract, is expected to be retained. Matthews, the hitting instructor for Toronto, has been rumored to be joining Baker for weeks.
“He’s one of my best friends, and I’m living right here [in Chicago],” Matthews said.
“Obviously, I’m excited Dusty’s here, and we’ll see what happens next week or the week beyond.”
Pole, whose contract as the Montreal Expos’ pitching coach expired Oct. 31, was Baker’s pitching coach in San Francisco from 1993-97. Pole also served as Cubs pitching coach under Don Zimmer from 1988-91. With Rothschild signed through 2004, Pole likely would join the staff as Baker’s bench coach.
“Dusty and I got along very well in San Francisco,” Pole said.
“When I was let go, it was not his decision. I’d like to work with him again. We’ve been together since the Arizona Fall League in ’92.”
Matthews already has told Baker about the state of delirium that engulfed Chicago in 1984, when he starred on a Cubs team that came out of nowhere to win its division. Pole has told Baker about the state of delirium that engulfed Chicago in 1989, when the Cubs team he coached for came out of nowhere to win its division.
Both those teams lost in the National League Championship Series, and Baker was hitting coach on the ’89 Giants team that ended the Cubs’ season.
Pole, who still has his “Boys of Zimmer” poster on the wall of his den in his home in Dearborn, Mich., knows many Chicagoans will expect the 2003 Cubs to pull off a similar feat with Baker at the helm.
“I’m sure people will put that on him a little more,” Pole said. “But he’s the kind of guy who handles those situations well, and players respond to him. He’ll take the pressure off the players and put it on himself to help them relax more.
“Over the years you always hear Sammy [Sosa] saying how much he wants to win. Dusty will take some of the pressure to win off Sammy and place it on his own shoulders.”
The Cubs’ chances of winning are as slim as a Baker toothpick if they don’t put some better hitters around Sosa. If Matthews is hired as expected, he and Baker will have their hands full trying to improve one of the least productive lineups in the major leagues.
“Regardless of who the hitting or pitching coach is, when you see something wrong you tell the other guy,” Matthews said. “One good thing about Dusty is that with his coaches, there won’t be a lot of jealousy. Sometimes you have that, especially when guys want to take credit for things. The players are the ones who are actually hitting.”
The Cubs set a club record with a major-league-leading 1,269 strikeouts, an astounding 464 more than the world-champion Anaheim Angels and 308 more than Baker’s Giants. Barry Bonds has the best batting eye of any slugger, striking out an average of once every 13 at-bats, sixth best in the National League. Sosa and Mark Bellhorn tied for seventh most NL strikeouts at 144, and Corey Patterson was eighth at 142. Worse, Patterson walked only 19 times for an on-base percentage of .284 that made him ineffective batting at the top of the order.
The Cubs’ .246 average was second to last in the NL, but they led the league with 200 home runs. In other words, it was an all-or-nothing attack, especially when they played at Wrigley Field, where the Cubs hit a paltry .238.
Sosa hit .265 at Wrigley as opposed to .310 on the road, evidently changing his approach to accommodate the legions of homer-happy Cubs fans who leave the park after his final at-bat.
This was particularly evident during the final month, when Sosa was trying to reach the 500-home run plateau, ultimately falling one homer shy. Bothered by a stiff neck caused by a collision with Bellhorn, Sosa hit .216 in September with six home runs, an average of one for every 16.2 at-bats. He entered the final month with 43 homers, averaging one for every 10.7 at-bats.
Baker had the second-ranked NL bullpen at his disposal in San Francisco, but he inherits a relief corps that finished next to last in the league with a 4.92 ERA.
Getting into Bonds’ head is one thing. Trying to figure out what’s going on inside Kyle Farnsworth’s mind is another. Although the radar gun had his fastball hitting 100 m.p.h. routinely, Farnsworth compiled a 9.00 earned-run average in 24 appearances at Wrigley. His second-half ERA was 8.71 in 28 games as he seemed to lose all confidence in himself.
Baker’s job title may read “manager,” but his duties will be part manager, part mentor, part psychologist and part preacher.
He was as outspoken in San Francisco as Mike Ditka was as Bears coach, which bodes well for his relationship with Cubs fans.
“It’s a very good mixture,” Pole said. “Dusty is pretty amenable. He can adjust with the best of them, and Chicago is the kind of city that embraces people like that.
“I think they’ll like Dusty a lot.”
Like Gene and Georgetti’s or State and Madison, Baker and the Cubs seem like the perfect Chicago fit.
“It’s a perfect fit when you win,” Matthews said. “That’s the bottom line.”
