Two balls, one beat reporter

Of all the Cub beat reporters, Bruce Miles of the Daily Herald is the only one with the balls to call Dusty out consistently on his inconsistencies. Witness his story of yesterday's game First there was mention of how the Cubs don't take extra practice before the game to cover things like fundamentals:

The Pittsburgh Pirates did all they could to climb out of last place Tuesday.

Hours before their game against the Cubs, the Pirates commandeered Wrigley Field to take extra batting, infield and outfield practice, something the home team has done precious little of this season.

Then he points out how Baker defends Juan 4-3erre when he does the same thing that Ryan Theriot did last week to incur Baker's ire:

The Cubs came back to tie it with a run in the third, 2 in the fourth and 1 in the fifth. They had a chance to go ahead in the eighth when Juan Pierre singled with one out and stole second base. But Pierre got himself thrown out trying to steal third, and the Cubs came up empty.

Baker carried on for two days criticizing rookie Ryan Theriot about a similar play Aug. 22. However, he seemed to defend the veteran Pierre.

“Well, I mean, Juan is on his own,” Baker offered. “He has a pretty good idea when to run. He didn’t get a real good jump on that ball. On that one he usually gets an outstanding jump. Just a tough night.”

See Dusty, it's your inconsistently unfair handling of your players, not your race, that make most of us hate you.
Finally, Bruce mentions this about Felix Pie:

Pie unhappy: Farm director Oneri Fleita said Tuesday that outfield prospect Felix Pie is unhappy about not being called up from Class AAA Iowa in September.

“He was probably the only guy who wasn’t called up,” Fleita said. “But he’s a good kid and will turn it into a positive, which is what you would expect.

“I couldn’t ask anything more from him the last three or four weeks. And I felt like he’s been a catalyst. He had 15 home runs and 5 this last month when it counted. He wasn’t going to play a lot (with the Cubs). I want to see him get his head together, get some time off and have a great winter.”

Pie will head to Arizona to work with former Cubs center fielder Bob Dernier to work on his baserunning, bunting and the “finer points of the game,” Fleita added. From there, Pie will go to winter ball and play for Von Joshua, the Cubs’ hitting coach at Iowa.

This is actually the best thing for Pie and the Cubs. The Cubs can start his ML service time next season, probably a few weeks into the season, and Pie will stay out of harms' way as far as Baker and the coaching staff ruining him.

All in all, thanks, Bruce, for not being afraid to tell it like it is!