Which Is Worse, The Team Or The Paper? It's A Toss-Up Right Now

After reading the garbage from Gramps Verdi yesterday, then there's this total piece of shit from Rick Morrissey today , with these dingleberries strewn in:

You would think Baker had been the captain of the ExxonValdez instead of the manager of a foundering, no-talent team.

The same no-talent team that this clown picked to finish first this year.

To say the public anger toward him is disproportionate to his perceived sins would be to say an elephant is slightly larger than a flea.The volume on the criticism is so high now, the attacks so personal that you wonder what the guy has done to possibly bring this on. And if you don't jump on board the Hate Train, there's something not quite right about you. You're certainly not a tough guy. Tough guys chew up people like Baker and spit them out.

His "perceived" sins are many. He's a stubborn, idiotic manager who never understood the concept of putting your guys who are best at getting on base by any means,at the top of the lineup in order that they come up to the plate more than the guys like Neifi, who never met a pitch he didn't like to swing at, who gave guys like Neifi, Jose Macias, and Freddie Bynum WAY more at bats then they deserved, and who was scared to death to give a young guy a chance, favoring giving playing time to known mediocrities. And that doesn't even count how he's decimated the young pitching stars.

If-when—general manager Jim Hendry lets Baker go, it will be a mercy killing. Baker should thank him. He deserves better than he has gotten, from his players and from fans. He deserves his dignity.Could the majority be right and we in the minority be wrong? Of course. There's room for that, at least on this end. But the other side doesn't want to hear a defense of Baker.

There is none.

It doesn't want to hear about a team that has been decimated by injuries. It doesn't want to hear that Hendry's failure to acquire starting pitchers is the true reason this franchise has stumbled the past two seasons. It doesn't want to hear about the misguided decision to give closer Ryan Dempster a three-year, $15.5million contract extension last fall.

They have been, in part Baker's doing, in part bad luck. It seems like other teams are able to battle through injuries where the Cubs just fell flat on their face. I say that's on the manager. Hendry did indeed blow it when his backup plan to Prior and Wood was Rusch and Jerome Williams, and most fans will acknowlege that. Since Dempster saved 33 of 35 last year, at the time it didn't seem like such a gamble. I don't know whether Dempster's free fall was from lak of consistency or lack of consistent opportunities, but it has been brutal. Still, when Dumpster sucked, Baker had other options. Where the lineup was concerned, Baker blew it. When the rotation floundered, Baker and his staff didn't meet the challenge. That's why,Rick, the Cubs need to let Baker go. That's why, Rick, your column is horseshit. Finally, your columns, Verdi's, and most of the other so-called columists and jounalists are why the Trib is hemorraging money. I ould pull better columns out of my ass than you guys could.