Change is good

Dusty Baker is an excellent baseball manager.

He's gonna make the right team very happy.

Unfortunately, Dusty Baker was not even close to a good fit for the Cubs. Simply put, Dusty can manage one kind of baseball team: The kind with power hitters, little speed and a self-managing (and self-healing?) pitching staff.

The Cubs this year, and in the past few years, consisted of some power (which was good for Dusty) some speed (which was lost on Dusty) and a whole staff of young, fragile arms.

Dusty wasted most of the power; he wasted nearly all of he speed. (Did he ever call for a hit and run?) and he probably irrevocably damaged at least two and perhaps three of the best pitching arms in baseball by his mis-managing.

That said, I'm not sorry to see Dusty and the Cubs part ways. It's sad when anyone gets fired for any reason, but in this case ....

Dusty will land on his feet. He's a good baseball man.

It remains to be seen if there's enough left of the Cubs after his tenure for them to land on their feet.

So far, it sounds like the consensus pick to replace Baker is Joe Girardi. I'm not opposed to that. As a former catcher, he should know a little about pitching. As a self-made hitter, he should know a little about hitting and hitting philosophy. As a manager, he's been successful wherever he's been. And he's an Illinois boy, so he knows how long we've suffered.

The Cubs could do worse. (They could have kept Baker.)

Now it's up to Hendry (if he's still around in a week) and the Tribune Co. (unless they finally decide to sell) to decide if they really want a winner or whether putting 38,000 fannies in the seats at every home game is enough of a measure of success.

As an incurable Cubs fan. I really hopes some people in the organization finally decide to try and make the Cubs into a winner.

We deserve it.

And so it goes.