General Manager Jim Hendry met with Dusty Baker before Wednesday’s game and discussed published reports that the Cubs manager and some of his coaching staff could be in danger of losing their jobs during the All-Star break.
Baker said he’s not worried about his fate.
“I expect to be here,” he said. “Why not? I ain’t walking Death Row.”
While Hendry wasn’t backing off comments he made Tuesday about evaluating everyone during the four-day break next week, he said speculation Baker and several of his coaches could be gone by next week was premature and that the evaluation process could go on longer.
“My situation is no different than it always has been,” Hendry said. “It’s a constant evaluation of the entire process. Dusty understands that. Obviously we need to play better, but there never has been a time frame set by myself. And I’m really the one who’s going to make the call.
“I’d like to see us play better before the break, and I’d certainly like to see us play the rest of the year a lot better. The situation right now is that we just have to play better and win some games.”
Hendry said the decision is his alone and that neither club President Andy MacPhail nor Tribune Co. ownership is pressuring him. Baker reiterated he believes Hendry will give him every opportunity to turn things around.
“I feel comfortable,” he said. “A lot of other people don’t feel comfortable, but I feel comfortable and that’s what counts. I haven’t lost any confidence in what I can do.”
Baker said he went through a similar situation in San Francisco with a team that lost 94 games in 1996 and he drew an analogy of a manager to a black box on an airplane.
“If the airplane has a failure, it has a black box where everybody is going to see whether it was pilot error or mechanical error or failure or whatever,” he said. “The one thing you learn about in life, no matter what job you’re in, is you’re going to have your turn to be in that box, whether you’re a manager or a coach or a CEO or a president or a janitor.
“You know everybody is going to get a chance in what I call the black blame box, because that’s what it is.”
Baker was asked if that meant he would come out and reveal his thoughts on the Cubs’ problems after he was gone, just as a black box can reveal what actually occurred during a plane crash.
“No,” he replied. “They have been good to me. I have no complaints about Tribune (Co.), about Jim, about Andy, about people upstairs.”
