| Douglas Benton. 3rd October, 2006 - 12:17 pm
 Flash back to 2002 and the baseball landscape was much different than it is today. The Giants had just lost the World Series to the Anaheim Angels, like I said things changed, and manager Dusty Baker was starting to look around for new employment. That is when things started to connect.
Relationships between general manager Brian Sabean and Baker had started to fall apart and rumors began to swirl that Baker was attempting to leave San Francisco for the Chicago Cubs. Then, the Giants came out and said that Baker’s contract wouldn’t be renewed and that their new manager would be Felipe Alou. From there, these two franchises would be linked.
In Alou’s first season as the skipper of the Giants, they won 100 games, ran away with the National League West before falling to the Florida Marlins after usually sure-fielding outfielder dropped a fly ball early in the series that changed the course of the rest of the series, ending in a poor throw from Jose Cruz, Jr. later on and his eventual exit from the Giants.
In Chicago, on the other hand, the Cubs snuck into the playoffs in the final days of the regular season with a 88-74 record and winning the National League Central. The Cubs surprised the Braves in the first round and were up three games to one over the Florida Marlins in the NLCS when everything fell apart. They lost games six and seven with Mark Prior and Kerry Wood on the mound and the whole Bartman fiasco which some in Chicago still blame as the reason for their struggles.
The Marlins went on to win the World Series, but the direction of the two National League teams they beat took drastic turns in the wrong direction after this October. The Chicago faithful never really forgave Baker for blowing this chance and eventually injuries to both Wood and Prior, as well as faulty moves aimed at winning now caused this franchise to be in the state it is right now. Whoever gets this job, will have their hands full.
Much is the same story in San Francisco where the San Francisco faithful, still basking in their new ballpark, demanded that this team live up to the 100 win performance of 2003 and the World Series performance of 2002. This led the team to add a team full of seasoned veterans and now they look ahead to an off-season where they will have to change the culture and deal with free agents all over the key positions heading into the 2007 season.
Winter 2002, these two teams were the two headliners of the hot stove and after 2003, they were considered top contenders for World Series. Now that the 2006 is over, these two franchises now are without managers and are considered at the bottom of baseball totem poll and two good managers are without a job once again. |
