Dusty Baker still hasn’t learned

With baseball season a month away, Dusty Baker gets another chance to redeem himself after the miserable failure that was his time on the North Side.

”People say, ‘He doesn’t like young players,’ ” Baker said, shaking his head. ”Hey, man, I know what I’m doing. I know what a ballplayer looks like. I know what a ballplayer walks like, what they talk like, what they act like. And at the end there, I had a discussion with Jim, he asked me if I would play the kids so he could determine who to keep in the future.

You know what you’re doing?? Then why did you continually play Todd Hollandsworth, Neifi Perez, Glendon Rusch, Jose Macias and many other unproductive veterans when you had young kids you could have developed?? Don’t tell me that it was to maintain the integrity of the playoff races. That won’t stick. And then:

”I was asked if I thought [Marmol] would be a good reliever. And I said, ‘Yes, but I need him to start because we don’t have any starters.”’

So because you don’t have anyone who can start for you in a season that is already lost, you’re going to mess with this guy? BRILLIANT!!

Reds fans, you’re going to be in for a long, sad, miserable 2008. Jay Bruce and Joey Votto won’t be seeing the field much with Dusty, and you better hope he doesn’t destroy Homer Bailey’s arm, the way he has ruined Mark Prior for life.