Dusty Baker is doing such a fine job as the manager of the Cincinnati Reds that his bosses (general manager Walt Jocketty and club president Bob Castellini) felt the need to publish a public apology to the fans for the performance of the dead-ass last Cincinnati Reds.
Dusty knows from finishing last. He did it in 2006 with the Chicago Cubs, a team so devoid of talent that he could only get 66 wins out of them at a whopping .407 clip.
(Dusty might not want people to know that since the day he was told the Cubs weren’t going to draw up a contract to pay him for more years of that crap, that the Cubs have gone 162-125 since. That’s .546 baseball.)
These kinds of letters always amuse me. It’s clear that whatever organization or company who feels the need to write one knows they screwed up big time. But this isn’t Tylenol apologizing for not taking enough safety precautions to stop some sicko from putting cyanide in their bottles, or NBC publicly apologizing for Joey.
This is a baseball team that nobody thought was going to be any good in 2008 anyway, apologizing for sucking, and for trading away a 38 year old has been, and a lumbering strikeout prone ox. The fact that they feel the need to apologize just proves they’re clueless enough to keep Dusty around.
Given the way they’ve played in recent years, they should have apologized last year for not trading Ken Griffey Jr. or Adam Dunn when they had more value.
Written on pretend Interwebs stationery, the Reds 
apologize for a lot of stuff. They apologize for trading Junior and Dunn. They apologize for being lousy, they even apologize for players’ getting hurt, as though that could be somebody else’s fault. I mean, it’s not like they were beating the crap out of Jerry Hairston Jr. in the clubhouse or anything.
Or even more ridiculous than that, it’s not like their manager or pitching coach would overuse their young pitchers, or do something reckless like make their best two starting pitchers pitch on two and one day’s rest for multiple innings in an extra-inning loss at woeful San Diego in a meaningless May game or anything.
Hah! Can you imagine? Now that would have been silly.
Why don’t they apologize for the stuff that they really matters?
Dear fan(s),
Thank you for your loyalty and support of the Cincinnati Reds. You are extremely vital to the success of the Reds, and it is important we share with you the thinking behind our recent personnel decisions. Without you, our billionaire owner would have to spend his own money on the team, and no way is that going to happen. You’re still paying Eric Milton’s contract. Thanks!
Since taking ownership of this franchise, we have aggressively tried to improve our Major League roster for the purpose of restoring championship baseball to Cincinnati. We have sought and signed proven players. Most of them, like Gabor Bako and Corey Patterson have proven they suck. We have extended the contracts of select current players. You know, really good ones, like Bronson Arroyo and Scott Hatteberg. Yes, we’re still paying Scott Hatteberg, too. We added Dusty Baker, a proven winning manager. He’s proven that if you give him a superstar outfielder and enough steroids, he can have a winning season. Without that? Uh…hey, did we mention that we’ve capitalized on our burgeoning younger players like Joey Votto, Jay Bruce and Johnny Cueto. You know the guys. Votto, the first baseman with the really short arms, Bruce, the fat guy who had most of his hits in the first five games he played for us and Cueto, a guy with some talent who is already scheduled for Tommy John surgery next April.
We had high expectations for the 2008 season. Unfortunately the team has not played up to our expectations and we have sustained injuries to key players within our starting lineup and rotation. Actually, the team played to everyone else’s expectations. Everyone in the league expected us to suck. And we do.
We opted to trade Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn at this time because we believe it provided the best outcome for the long-term success of the organization. Actually, last year would have been better, but we were trying to milk out some extra memorabilia money by hanging onto Junior until he hit his 600th homer. We should have known it would take him forever. As for Dunn? If somebody would just play him at first base and pay more attention to his OBA than his BA, they’d see he’s a pretty good player. Dusty just saw him as another fat guy who took way too many walks. By executing these inevitable changes now, we secured more players as part of our focus towards building a deeper, stronger inventory of young talent. Actually, we’re amazed we got talent from the White Sox for Griffey, since he’s so obviously over the hill. Never underestimate Kenny Williams’ need to steal a headline for a day from the Cubs.
We are pleased that the trades allow Griffey and Dunn the opportunity to play for teams in tight division races. Both Ken and Adam made significant contributions to the Reds and we are extremely proud and grateful they wore the Reds uniform. We’re not sure what those contributions were, since we’ve been pretty lousy for almost a full decade now. But we’re sure they were significant.
While the run production generated by these two veterans will not be quickly replaced, we chose to endure the short-term ramifications for the sake of building a strong, competitive team for 2009 and many seasons to come. Actually, we think that Jerry Hairston and that Dickerson kid will play as well as Junior and Dunn. At least Junior. Did we mention he’s finished?
The vast majority of our 50 draft picks were signed, culminating last week with first-rounder Yonder Alonso and a pair of talented pitchers. Our expanded scouting operations also signed Juan Duran from the Dominican Republic and Yorman Rodriguez from Venezuela, who are arguably the best amateur free agent position players from their respective countries.
Seriously, we have no idea if any of these guys are going to be any good. We just think Yonder and Yorman are cool names and we thought the other guy was Simon LeBon’s nephew.
As we near September, Dusty will continue to try to avoid providing any valuable playing time to our young players and new acquisitions because he thinks there’s a difference between finishing 70-92 and 64-98. He has no idea if any of them can become significant contributors at the Major League level. We ask your continued blind trust and naive patience as we build the roster that will get us back on top. By top, we mean fourth place. We appreciate your support and look forward to seeing you at the ballpark.
In the meantime, you get to listen to lectures daily from the pompous Brenneman boys, who will feign disgust at what happens on the field. All they’re really doing is sitting up in the booth combing out their pompadours and trying to figure out which golf courses they can get comped on. That’s quite a pair of “men of the people” we have. One guy’s named Franchester, the other one was born with a silver spoon up his ass.
Go Reds!
Love,
Bob and Walt
Hey, at least their fans get a letter, all the Bears fans get is four months of the Kyle and Rex show.
I tried to get them to apologize for hiring Dusty as well, but they felt that would actually indicate that somebody was at fault for the sad state of our team. But I wasn’t going to argue about it, not while they’re paying me a ridiculous amount of money to manage a bunch of triple-a players that allow the other NL Central teams to pad their stats.
It’s not like I need another championship ring, right? Once you’ve got one, the others seem to lose their lustre. The money can do more than another championship!
Dusty Baker is not the reason the Reds suck this season. No one expected much of them based on their collective team talent, and they have not disappointed. Their best pitchers are acquisitions, as their farm system hasn’t produced a MLB-quality starter in God-knows how long. That’s the legacy of Jim Bowden, who is duplicating that feat in DC.
Point being, beating up Dusty for Cincy 08 is forced and not funny.
Dustmop blew Harang’s arm out by pitching him three times in a week. Harang won 16 games each of the past two seasons.
Dustrag batted K-Patt leadoff countless times — a player currently batting .195 with a .229 OBP — and has made .215-hitting Paul Bako the starting catcher. Partially as a result, the Reds have scored 52 runs less than the Ass Pirates.
Now, you were saying?
Point being, beating up Dusty for Cincy 08 is forced and not funny.
It might be forced, but it’s still funny. And of course, it always looks great when we have the pleasure of reading this immediately after an anemic offense (DOOOM) can’t touch the magnificent trio of pitchers shuffled out to the mound tonight. Hell, I thought David Weathers had died in that horrific car crash with Stevie Eyre’s pole in his mouth, so what do I know…
I guess I’ll have to move over to ‘Bloody Puppie Stool’ to catch up with the real fans’ Cub reports.
I don’t understand this new Desipio commenting system at all.
Is it just that I’m a moran, or is every other comment numbered, and listed with a name, while the others have niether?
I hate Dusty. We (Reds) are also still not paying Milton’s contract: (http://www.nypost.com/seven/07112008/sports/yankees/yankees_sign_eric_milton_to_minor_league_119477.htm)
The article had some funny points. It’s humorous how you left out arguably the best pitcher in the NL (Volquez). No biggie, however, it’s our only bright spot.
You should have harped more on C-Patt and Dusty’s mysterious relationship. This year Corey has over 250 AB’s and he’s hitting .195. He has 8 HR’s and 21 RBI’s and an average to below average fielder. Wanna talk about waste of money. This idiot is making 3 million a year.
Sad, sorry Reds fan.
p.s. Congrats on getting rid of mini-patterson. He also was horrible.
“(Dusty might not want people to know that since the day he was told the Cubs weren’t going to draw up a contract to pay him for more years of that crap, that the Cubs have gone 162-125 since. That’s .546 baseball.)”
Dude, did you see the horses they got after I left? Of course they can win. Sheeit, I could probably get this team to win even with the baseclogging Japanese dude who I would have to sit for most day games because his yellow ass would wilt in the sun. Also I’d let that Harden dude pitch more. Have you seen his stuff, he’s filthy! You definitely gotta let him throw 8-9 innings a game, screw the pitch count. Hell it worked for me in 2003 with Prior and he’s doing just fine n…actually never mind that dude.
Obviously the Reds aren’t winning because I had a baseclogger in left who can’t field worth a damn (good thing for him was we play a lot of night games) and my horse Griffey might need to be over the hill, although they said the same thing about Henry Aaron when he was getting up there and the man could hit. Did I ever tell you about the time I played with him? Anyway dude, they’re both gone now and then Walt gives me a bunch of kids to plug in their place. Dude, you give me guys like Neifi and Jaques Jones and we’d be up there with the Cubs and Brewers. Guaranteed!
Here’s what Steve Stone had to say about Baker the other day on Boers and Bernstein:
“..you have to give credit where credit is due. Dusty did turn around this Cincinnati team. He took a team that added a $46M closer in [Francisco] Cordero, and they had some really good young players, and he took them from a mediocre ball club to a really crappy ball club.”