He wasn’t made from the standard general manager mold, but his positive attitude, energy and enthusiasm quickly transformed Chicago’s lovable losers into National League Central champs.
Jim Hendry is the acknowledged architect of the 2003 Cubs, rebuilding the roster in his first full season on the job and watching it meld into a playoff team under new manager Dusty Baker.
A former college coach at Creighton, Hendry took a low-level scouting job with Florida and worked his way up the major-league management ladder, Hendry, 48, is the antithesis of the blow-dried, business-school GMs who dominate the baseball landscape.
“He has to be the general manager of the year,” pitcher Mike Remlinger said. “He’s always positive, always full speed ahead and he doesn’t look back. His attitude, as much as anything, was the reason for me coming here. I know it’s the same with Dusty. He’s a breath of fresh air in this industry.
“He’s not your standard GM profile, but he does a great job of getting people here.”
Watching the superstitious Hendry watch the Cubs in action is almost as fun as watching the game itself.
“I’ll get intense,” he said. “I’ll let it rip a little bit, but at the same time I also can stay calm and talk to anybody I need to talk to. It’s not like I’m sitting up there bearing down on every pitch or charting pitches. I try to take the attitude that I can’t control the outcome of the game.
“We have a great manager and a bunch of guys who want to win, so you know you’re getting great effort every day.
“It’s baseball. Sometimes things go wrong. You can’t be mad at guys one day and then patting them on the back the next day. I try to be the same guy to the players every day. And the ones down the road who we wouldn’t have felt were giving good effort, or weren’t good for the ballclub, those are the guys you try to weed out and get stronger.
“It never has been a personal thing for me. I treat them the same on the plane after the game, win or lose. That’s my nature. All I expect from them is to show up on time and give us their best effort.”
