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| voodoopug |
The Dusty Baker era could be entering its final days with the Chicago Cubs.
Baker
Cubs general manager Jim Hendry told Chicago reporters Tuesday he would use the four-day All-Star break to decide whether an overhaul, which could include firing manager Baker, is in order.
"I'll spend a lot of time over the break not just with the way the situation is, but with your own players. I'll sit back and reflect on the first half," Hendry told reporters.
"You are getting ready to go into a month where you have to evaluate what you have. You want to give everyone a fair chance to succeed," he said.
Tuesday's 7-2 loss to Houston dropped the Cubs to 23 games under .500 at 30-53. Chicago is just two games out of last place in the NL Central and 15½ games behind the first-place Cardinals.
Among the candidates speculated to replace Baker, if he is fired, are former managers Lou Piniella, Tom Kelly, Jimy Williams, Gene Lamont and Braves third base coach Fredi Gonzalez.
Baker, whose contract is set to expire after the season, is 286-283 with the Cubs.
The Cubs were buried by errors last season and finished 79-83. Baker has taken heat for the Cubs' collapse against in the 2003 NLCS -- when they were five outs from the pennant before losing Games 6 and 7 to the Florida Marlins -- and for various comments he has made
Note: The 60 second rule is back and I am not happy about it! |
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| pdog |
Dusty Baker can't win! |
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| jb |
This is the Day
This is the day
This is the day
That the Lord has made
That the Lord has made
We will rejoice
We will rejoice
And be glad in it
And be glad in it
This is the day that the Lord has made
We will rejoice and be glad in it
This is the day
This is the day
That the Lord has made.
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| pdog |
I'm impervious to the 60 second rule! |
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| jb |
For baby parmeda:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/6895/harry.gif |
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| pdog |
Is that Will Farrel? |
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| parmeda |
quote:
voodoopug wrote:
The Dusty Baker era could be entering its final days with the Chicago Cubs.
Note: The 60 second rule is back and I am not happy about it!
Don't worry pug, 60 seconds into the All-Star break you're gonna find Dusty vending peanuts over at The Cell!!!!
...and I'm gonna be doin' one hell of a Happy Dance!
Jesus Christ, I would take a physical beating than to have to spend the rest of the summer with this guy! And the rest of the yahoo's on the 'wish list'...fuck them, too! If you rolled them all together you couldn't come up with one decent form of a managing being.
Why did Billy Martin have to die, pug?
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| parmeda |
quote:
jb wrote:
For baby parmeda:
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Track/6895/harry.gif
Thanks Josh!
...oh, how I miss Harry. |
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| pdog |
quote:
parmeda wrote:
Why did Billy Martin have to die, pug?
Hahaha! |
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| parmeda |
quote:
pdog wrote:
Hahaha!
What in the hell is so funny, pdog? |
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| pdog |
quote:
parmeda wrote:
What in the hell is so funny, pdog?
It's empathy! I'm laughing near you, not at you! One day, we will alugh together!
Fuckin' Dusty ... He had a great team in SF, and still managed to blow it in The World Series...
He's actually made a sucky team suckier! |
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| Starbuck |
pammy....say what you want about the rest, but tom kelly is 2 for 2 when it comes to winning world serieses. he knows his baseball.
he won't, however, come out of retirement to manage the cubbies, despite the andy mcphail connections.
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| parmeda |
quote:
Starbuck wrote:
pammy....say what you want about the rest, but tom kelly is 2 for 2 when it comes to winning world serieses. he knows his baseball.
he won't, however, come out of retirement to manage the cubbies, despite the andy mcphail connections.
That's alright, Mr. Buck...the last thing Chicago needs is another drunken Irishman  |
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| Gazza |
quote:
parmeda wrote:
That's alright, Mr. Buck...the last thing Chicago needs is another drunken Irishman
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| parmeda |
quote:
Gazza wrote:
Oooops!
Gazza...I am so sorry, babe!
That was no direct hit towards yourself...omg, what a putz I am, lmao
YOU would be welcome to come to Chicago ANY summer, ANY winter, ANY spring or ANY fall for how ever long you'd wish!
Hell...pug, tele and myself would literally drag you to a few of the Irish haunts and get you fucked up indeed!
Sound like a plan?...you're always welcome 
(btw, do you know anything about baseball?
I hear we're scouting for a new manager, lmfao!) |
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| Barney Fife |
From CNN.com:
How Johnny Cash made his peace
'American V' chronicles legend's determination, spirit
NEW YORK (AP) -- Diabetes had cost Johnny Cash much of his sight, and he needed a wheelchair. Losing his wife June was crushing. Yet, in retrospect, producer Rick Rubin wasn't surprised to hear Cash's plea the day after June died in May 2003.
He needed to work. He had to work to keep himself going.
Fulfilling Cash's request, Rubin set up a studio in a bedroom of Cash's home in Tennessee, and sent an engineer who was on call for recording for most of the rest of Cash's life. The music legend died four months after his wife.
"Sessions were booked every day and if he woke up and felt good enough to do it, he would call up and say, 'Let's do it,"' Rubin recalled. "If he wasn't doing well enough, he'd say let's do it tomorrow."
Results of some of those sessions are evident with Tuesday's release of "American V: A Hundred Highways," the fifth and penultimate in a series of discs made with Rubin that memorably capped Cash's career. It's the most moving musical rumination on mortality since Warren Zevon's last album before lung cancer killed him. (Read the EW review.)
Cash's once mountainous voice trembles and breaks in a set of songs both somber and spiritual. "Oh, Lord, help me to walk another mile, just one more mile," Cash sings on the disc's opening line. "I'm tired of walking all alone."
Among the dozen cuts is "Like the 309," the last song Cash ever wrote. It's about a train, appropriate for the man who once sang about a prisoner hearing a train whistle pass.
During those last few months Rubin regularly sent Cash assignments of songs to work on. Cash would suggest his own, and his son encouraged him to record Bruce Springsteen's "Further On (Up the Road)."
The producer sensed how important it was to keep Cash's artistic spirit alive.
"When he stopped touring, that was a terrible blow to him," Rubin said. "He loved being an artist. He felt that was why God put him on the planet. When he stopped touring, one of his main means of communication had been stopped. From that point on, he really wanted to record all the time. If he had said 'let's stop,' we would have stopped."
The timing of his death surprised Rubin because Cash had been feeling better and was planning to travel to Los Angeles to work on the music.
"After June died, he was prepared to die," said Rubin, who spoke with Cash every day in those final months. "I don't think he wanted to die, but I think he was completely at an accepting stage, of whenever it was time, it would be fine with him."
Being at the end of a memorable life is clearly reflected in the song selection. Rod McKuen's sweet "Love's Been Good To Me" is a nostalgic look back by a man who feels lucky in love. Cash re-records one of his old compositions, "I Came to Believe," about how spiritual strength helped him overcome addictions.
On his own "Like the 309," he sings: "Everybody take a look, see I'm doin' fine. Then load my box on the 309."
The one selection that seems ill-conceived is Don Gibson's "A Legend in My Time," with a jarringly self-pitying tone.
Faltering 'part of the storytelling'
One idea that provoked wildly mixed feelings among Rubin's friends who heard the album is how the first three songs -- all essentially spirituals -- are followed by a cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind." Some found the transition odd and too abrupt.
Yet the Lightfoot cover is the disc's emotional center. Cash's voice is at its weakest, but his struggles to reach the notes and enunciate the words accents the aching tenderness of the lyrics.
Cash always believed he could count on his voice, and it bothered him when it was less reliable at the end, Rubin said.
"His ability to tell a story was so strong, that even when his voice was faltering, it sounded like that was part of the storytelling," he said. "I would always tell him that. I think it would make him feel better, but I did know that he wished he had better use of his instrument in the same way he always had before."
For most of his discs with Rubin, Cash would record vocals close to home and Rubin would direct construction of musical backing tracks in Los Angeles with veteran session musicians -- people like Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Then Cash would head West to oversee the final touches and re-do some vocals if he had to. The only thing different with "American V" was, of course, the elimination of that last step.
After Cash died, the tapes sat in storage. Rubin's a busy guy -- his long list of production credits includes current best sellers by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Dixie Chicks -- but that wasn't the reason. He couldn't deal with it emotionally.
Once he decided to attack the project, "it was initially traumatic and sad," he said. "But by the end of the first week it felt uplifting and positive. We felt like Johnny's presence was overseeing what was going on."
Probably because of Cash's condition and the song selections, it's a slow-tempo affair. The exception is "God's Gonna Cut You Down," with an inventive arrangement that features hand-claps and the stomping of feet.
Cash left behind enough material, about 60 songs, that there will be one more installment in the "American Recordings" series.
"Six isn't done yet," Rubin said. "But it's real good."
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