Dusty is gone and Hendry should be.

Dusty was dealt a bad hand what with the injuries, poor free-agent signings and over-rated youthful players.
Dusty also never, never got players to do basics, move a guy over, bunt, hit a cut-off man etc. Easy going, breezy, country club style clubhouse doesn't get it done when guys are dogging it and mentally absent. Who really improved under his 4 year reign? Good riddance "dude".

With Mcfail pushed out/resigning Hendry should go too. Bring in a marketing guy (McDonough) to help with Mcfail's absence?? Stupid, silly bandaid approach which has served Cubs well for last 85 or so years.

Team & management needs to be completely overhauled. Go young, very young in both and be patient as you'll still draw 3 mil plus no matter what garbage you put in lineup. Bring up best prospects from AA/AAA, spend a few bucks over winter and hope for the best in 09.
Forget dinosaur Piniella, get Girardi now. I don't care if he's an ***hole or jumps all over players/managements behinds, just get it done.

To the 14,000 core Sox fans, sorry you aren't seeing playoffs. To the 60-80,000 who latched on in late 05, hope this free time is allowing you to do some good out there in the world. Looking forward to much easier Sox tickets in 07.

Was Dusty that bad? Given that he never was able to put that dream rotation on the mound for any extended period of time and then given injuries to the likes of a player the quality of Lee and it seems as if he was managing with one hand tied behind his back from the start. IMO, it seems that a lot of players are willing to speak out supporting him. We've all seen those that take that first opportunity to take shots. What about players like Nomar? Was he productive at all for the Cubs? Further, IMO, I really respect the guy although he coached for those dreaded Cubs. (Insert Cardinal bias in this statement.) After these past season, I believe that this new skipper will either have to have long ties to the Cubs organization or and it is a big OR, they must go with an unknown. Of course, what do I know!

Attendance was about even this year.

The Sox (with a REAL MLB Team) will outdraw the "boystown blues" next year.

That Sox number btw, was 750,000 @ the parade last year....OK,...I'll give you 50,000 parade loving cubbie fans crying in thier beer.

Turning points are rarely recognized and this is no exception. We know which way the sox are going, not so sure about The Cubs. I think they are for sale and if so we won't know which way they are going until that happens.

Denis is 100% correct about the number of true sox fans. The bandwagon jumpers are now Bears fans. Now that The Twins have assumed their proper position at the top of The AL Central (4 champs in 5 years?) the sox will continue their underachieving ways.....soemthing they have been doing for years with last year being the obvious abberation.

fast...I understand your frustration and the frustration of your forefathers for more than 100 years.

In light of the fact that it is likely that it will take the Cubbies another 175 years to win the World Series, I can undertand the tone of your comments.

Go in peace, my brother.

White Sox will be fine in 2007. They need a centerfielder and some middle relief and they'll be "right there" again.

Next Manager for the Cubbies--- Felipe Alou ???

Heard that someone is recommending Rep. Foley from Florida.

Actually, Rep. Foley was set to take a spot on the sox staff til they realized that he and Ozzie were not very likely to work well together.

lolololol...Good one, Fast.

Truth is that it's hard to get excited about the playoffs this year.

In NY there is no lack of excitement, that is for sure

The Twins will beat both The Yankees and the Mets, thank god.

Who gives a $hit about NY?

Dirty streets.

Unfriendly people.

Universally disliked just as Chicago is popular worldwide.

Foley would be the perfect fit.

and...lok good to "page type cub fans" in boystown blue!.....LOLOLOLOL

I am not a Cub fan nor a Sox fan, but when the Cubs made their run a few yrs ago no one ever said anything about firing these two guys. The fact of the matter is, if Gonzalez picked up that groundball in the NLCS against Florida, you would have gave Dusty and Hendry the key to city.
Poor move to let Dusty go. He is a players manager.
What ever happened to those T-Shirts in Wrigleyville that you saw everywhere?
"In Dusty We Trusty"

This team stays healthy throughout the year, and a good mid-season trade this team would have been right in the middle of things. Just don't blame Hendry or Dusty. They can't hold these players hands out there.

everyone loved dusty in san fran, then they realized what a poor manager is. every said how great dusty was at building a team...well he should be a gm then not a coach

What dusty should have done was go to the mound after the bartmen deal and calm his troops down "Hey we have a nice lead, we are a few outs away...relax and get it done" Instead Dusty sat there with his fingers crossed holding his cross in his hand. The people in cubdom who know baseball realized he wasnt a good manager.

He had a rough go, but he never took control...he never stepped out and said he could have done more. The cubs lacked fundamentals, I dont care who is on the field, they need to be worked on.

Dusty will manage again, but not for a contender!

Amazing!

The guy takes his team to the brink of the WS and an attitude guy in LF wines and cries and makes a scene because a fan got in his way....and Dusty is at fault?????

His team fell apart because they could not handle the pressure....PERIOD.

More CSFD! (Chicago Sports Fan Disease)

Don't get me wrong, Ozzie basher's are infected as well.

please define CSFD......before you label, understand

so your saying its a managers job to just put the best 9 out there and cross his fingers?

Arod stepped all over himself in the playoffs...again...and Joe Torres job is on the fence?

Me saying dusty is a bad manager has nothing to do with being from chicago. Did espn have your CSD when they labeled dusty the number one reason why the cubs blew it? are you right and every sports writer in american wrong?

Bill,

CSFD is a raging immediate psychological reaction of extreme proportions to any coaching or managerial decision or decision's by a Chicago Manager or Coach of a Chicago Pro Franchise. It is manifested by a constant harping on the subject until the only remedy (firing the imagined culprit) is found.

I have lived in NY, Boston, Miami and Tallahassee. All of these cities are touched by this desease at various times but Chicago is the city where the disease has imbeded itself to the general populace and no vaccine has worked.

No individual Coach/Manager has been immune!

Not Jackson or Ditka or Marion or Lopez or Durocher or Manuel or Ozzie or Dusty or Skiles.

Face it, we are whiner's of the 1st degree when it comes to blaming the manager.

Hendry, injuries and the player's are to blame more than Dusty.

Counting on Prior, Wood and Lee was Dusty's fault?....I think NOT!

Btw, if sportswriter's and ESPN are your proving argument I feel you are TERMINAL!

Additionally:

I'll take AROD and his +.300 lifetime playoff average .....ANYTIME......LOLOLOLOL

I will sleep a whole lot easier tonight knowing that I shall never suffer from that malady known as CSFD! LOL!

Very well stated soxnole. I will agree that Dusty is not to blame. Hendry is not either. This organization should have their ownership to blame. The Tribune Company every spring writes in their own paper about how great this team is going to be, start thinking about the playoffs, buy your season ticket packages now, we have the best minor league system(never see any of them up with the big club), etc,etc. Just to give you Cub fans a sense of hope. Now what does Dusty and Hendry say? " We are doing everything we can to make this baseball club better". Those guys realize that this is a tough business and they try to keep expectations realistic. But it is their parent company that is making everything more difficult for them by opening their mouthes early in the season.
Leave Hendry alone, give him a budget to stay within and you will get your playoffs (maybe World Series) much sooner than later. Example: Kenny Williams on the South Side. They press and Reinsdorf left him alone to build a team. And what did he do? World Series.

For the longest time all we asked for was a winning team and product on the field worth watching. Its nice to see we have raised our standards around here to some degree and are even talking about winning in this city. For the first time in my life, in public, the Tribune has come out and said "We will win! We will bring a World Series to Chicago" Correct me if Im wrong, but I have never heard this before come out of the Tribune co. Over the past few seasons, the Cubs have increased their financial commitment and raised there salary cap to become more competitive. The Tribune also ate close to 9million dollars just to get rid of the cancer Sammy Sosa. Once again never in the history. We (Cubs Fans) were very excited when we had a healthy Prior, Wood, and Zambrano ahead of Clement. Sox fans were worried. We asked for a big time free agent and they signed Garciaparra. We literally were a ground ball away from a World Series, if he would have only made the routine play, still the closest we have come in a long time. We would still be talking about it. Eitherway, its been fun to watch and we even expect or are demanding the team win for the first time in a long time. I give Hendry full credit for the new interst, from both fans and the tribune co. and credit him for getting them to spend money and appear to care. If he only had a crystal ball and could have prevented the injuries that occured such as the groin coming out of the box with Garciaparra, or the come back line drive off Priors elbow, or the Collision with Lee at first base, the bartmen foul ball, and the routine grounder. The job of the GM is to build a roster and make trades if and when possible with ownership approval and $$$ allowance, which I belive he has done well. Sometimes I would rather be lucky than good and all the Cubs need is a little luck in the injury arena and we will be ok. As far as Dusty is concerned, maybe it is time for a change and get some fire in here to match Hendrys intensity, but he did not lose the NLCS because he did not take the mound and give a bunch of millionair professionals a little league type pep talk....sorry i disagree...

Um I think any place where people care about their sports teams feel the same way. People in atlanta arent very happy with the braves. Look what they have done the last 13 years....We live in a "what have you done for me lately" society

They are all at fault.....is it jim hendrys fault cedeno couldnt make a throw to first? was it injuries that made Jones run the bases like a confused 6 year old? Was it prior and woods fault that nobody threw strikes?

Does it matter what arod did the first 162 games of the season? Nope......what does jeter do...he hits .500 in the post season and says he could have done more....arod hits a bingo number 046 and says he tried hard....for 256 million you need to produce. The yanks expect to be in the playoffs, so what happens the first 162 games doesnt matter. Thats what the team tried to get a-rod to understand

Yeah your right...Peter Gammons and Tim Kurchin are horrible sources!!! They are wrong, the hall of fame is wrong for voting gammons in...but your right!

In other words you live in the "what have you done for me lately" world of talk radio and midget sportswriters!

I don't agree.

This is not what I think.

It's what I have seen.

This constant bickering over the manager/coach is worse in Chicago than elsewhere.

No one has EVER called for Bobby Cox's head in Atlanta and imo, he and Jones would have been gone long ago had they been employed by a Chicago franchise.

I think soxnole is right to some degree and it is because we don't win often enough. If you aren't a pro basketball fan, all Chicago has is last years' sox championship.

We just aren't used to having big-time winners so we overreact both positively and negatively on a regular basis.

Why Ozzie did well: It was his team and the players did what he wanted (at least when they were playing well)

Why Dusty didn't: 1. Talent the last two years was very thin. 2. He let the players play however they wanted without fear of getting benched let alone traded or released. The players may say they respect Dusty, but in reality they took advantage of him.

He needed to go as did everyone else.

God this place feels like a high school lunch room at times!

So do things the Chicago way!:

Fire the lunch room manager.


or the Miami way:

Don't eat lunch.


or the California way:

as the Eagles said...."you'll have to eat your lunch all by yourself"

soxnole,

All you ever do on this website is rip into the Cubs and talk about how bad they are.

I have something for you. Your sox pooped all over themselves this year!!!! Ozzie had his one year wonder!

The Cubs suck....we know! But we don't need a pompous jerk like you telling us that.

Good luck this spring!! you'll need it.

Some people.....

Sox were very competitive this year and their playoff dreams went out in the last week of the regular season.

Cub playoff dreams ended in the first week of the season.

Just the facts.

well said by-u!

god forbid anyone else has any thoughts besides the same 3 people!

Bill...Do you realize you are talking about Cub and Sox fans in Chicago? Everyone is right.

Just like the Mutts and Yankees in New York.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

Don't take anything personally, a/k/a, don't get your skirts in a tither.
------

by-U...If you truly believe that what you've written is what happened to the Sox this year, then you have to agree that the Cubs team was inside a porta-pottie when it went over the cliff!!!!!

From a Sox fan,

The Sox weren't good enough since the AS break because they stopped doing the little things to win, and two teams in their division were simply better.

The Cubs are the same organization that I remember hurrying home from gammar school to watch the last couple innings of their games, pretty bad.

Let us not forget that the Sox had the 5th best record in the AL and 6th best record in the majors. The Cubs were simply the Cubs you could count on 95% of the time, near or at the bottom of the cellar.

Comparing the Sox and Cubs is like comparing apples and oranges... a golden apple, and a rotten orange.

lolololol, Tuzi

True Tuzi.....

But not like it is a long-term thing, just last year and half of this year. Other than that, the sox have been rotten oranges just like the Cubs.

2005 doesn't erase almost 100 years of futility by the sox....they have been every bit as bad as the Cubs over the years. Just the facts.

By-U

The TRUTH hurts!

Let me speak in words you can understand!

NAH NAH NA NAH NAH!

I know im just having fun with it!

My first post ever on this site I questioned everyones obsession with hitting instructors and what ever happened to self growth...so I dont mind it at all!

this boards are here for people to speak freely...nobody is right, nobody is wrong...just dont get personal!