Dusty Baker's lineup card should be written on a chalkboard, or a dry-erase board, or perhaps some parchment. Because what's on paper never seems to matter.
On paper, his 2002 San Francisco Giants should have never made it to the World Series. They did. On paper, his 2004 Chicago Cubs should have at least come close. They didn't.
And now, the 2005 Cubs — the stripped-down, less powerful, injury-riddled, not-that-great-on-paper Cubs — are playing better than the 2004 edition really ever did.
The Cubs' record doesn't bear out a positive difference, and maybe it's just their recent hot streak clouding the perception. But either way, the Cubs are playing good baseball.
They're within striking distance in the National League Central. They're leading the wildcard race. And they're looking like an actual team — with chemistry, with personality, with toughness, and with a chip on their shoulder — instead of a collection of stars that just didn't seem to get along.
They're also looking a lot like those Giants. And Dusty can handle a team like those Giants.
That's not to say that Dusty couldn't handle the 2004 Cubs. But by the end of the season, with a wildcard lead evaporating and clubhouse politics spinning out of control, you had to wonder. The team that was supposed to finally launch Chicago back to the heights of baseball greatness never really got off the ground. Injuries certainly played a role, and the Cardinals' incredible season made it tougher to compete. But even a perfectly healthy version of the Cubs would have been missing something. That special something. What the Cardinals had. What the Red Sox had. What Dusty's Giants had.
And it didn't seem like Cubs brass did much of anything to bring the team closer to that special something.
They let Moises Alou walk and didn't go after any established left fielders to fill the void. They watched Matt Clement sign with the Red Sox, and felt content to find a fifth starter in spring training. They let Mark Grudzielanek ship out to St. Louis in favor of Todd Walker. And, of course, they sent Sammy Sosa to Baltimore in a trade that was more about getting rid of Sammy than getting anything in return.
And so there the Cubs stood. A less powerful offense. A less dominant pitching rotation. And all the same questions that hovered around the 2004 Cubs.
On paper, not destined for much of anything. On Dusty's chalkboard? Maybe something more.
It didn't start out so great. The offense was predictably anemic. Nomar Garciaparra went down. And the injury bug snuck into the rotation again. Yeah, Derrek Lee was hitting everything in sight, but Aramis Ramirez was struggling. Corey Patterson was struggling. Jeromy Burnitz wasn't doing much. They still couldn't find a closer.
And when it seemed like things couldn't get any worse, Mark Prior took a line drive off his elbow. He writhed in pain on the ground. He thought for a second that his season, even his career, might be over. Pundits waxed about a death knell for the Cubs.
But all of a sudden, it seemed like the Cubs embraced the absurdity of it all. They looked at the disabled list, with Prior and Kerry Wood and Nomar featured prominently, and they shrugged. They looked at their record and set out to change it.
And they won that game, the one in which Prior went down. Then they won the next game, and the next game and pretty soon, they had won seven in a row. They've stayed relatively hot and stood at 30-26 as of Monday.
Lee is still scorching. Ramirez is finally heating up. Neifi Perez looks more like Nomar than Nomar. And the patchwork pitching staff is doing more than enough to win games.
Whether the Cubs can stay hot remains to be seen. They may yet revert back to the team that, on paper, should hover around the middle of the pack.
But Dusty seems to have a way with teams like this one, teams that aren't just a pricey hodgepodge of talent. His Giants had only two real stars — Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent.
The rest of the lineup included the J.T. Snow's and David Bell's of the world. The pitching rotation had Jason Schmidt, but he hadn't reached star status yet. Workhorses like Livan Hernandez and Russ Ortiz carried the team.
And yet, the Giants nearly won a world championship.
By all accounts, a masterful managing job by Dusty Baker had a lot to do with it. Enough that the Cubs spent big money to bring Dusty to Chicago.
What they didn't do was bring a Dusty Baker kind of team to Chicago. Now, seemingly more by subtraction than addition, maybe they've done that.
But they should give Dusty a chalkboard just to make sure.
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