Benedict Excommunicates Dusty Baker in First Official Move as Pope

VATICAN CITY-In a surprising first move as the new Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI excommunicated Dusty Baker from the Catholic Church. When questioned about the move, Benedict said, "The Lord spoke to me in a vision. The Lord asked me, 'Why? Why would a man pinch hit for my son, Jason Dubois, who was two for three with a double and an RBI, for Jose Macias, a creature I put on the earth destined to crawl on his belly for all of his days?' I said to the Lord, 'Lord, what should I do?' The Lord answered, 'Rid my Church of his voodoo ways and his silly managing. And tell him to give me back my holy water.'"


Dusty gets excommunicated as old friend Wendell Kim looks on.

The very next morning, Benedict excommunicated Baker. Aside from the Lord's holy decree, Benedict also cited God-fearing and long-suffering Cubs fans for his choice to excommunicate Baker. "These people have suffered for so many years. I felt that I had to do something. Since I am powerless to excommunicate him from Chicago, I took the next best step."

Benedict had some other holy words for Baker. "What I say is infallible, so get this through your fat head. Macias sucks and Remlinger can't get out lefties."

UGGGGGGH

I'm too furious to even make this funny or satirical.

Just when I thought Dusty couldn't even get dumber, he astonishes me yet again today. Jason Dubois is having a great game, probably the only bat worth a damn. Jason is due up, and a right-hander is pitching. Dusty, having read Baseball for Dummies by Joe Morgan, knows that right-handed hitter vs. right-handed pitcher = bad news. So Dusty, in his infinite wisdom, replaces the hot bat of Dubois, with the bat of the worst hitter in Major League Baseball, Jose Macias.


By dummies, for dummies.

Now, while this is going on, Lloyd McClendon (a dumbass manager in his own right), has a left-hander warming up in the pen. So common sense dictates that if Dusty replaces Dubois with a lefty (or in this case, a switch-hitter who sucks ass no matter which way he hits), that McClendon is just going to trot out a left-handed pitcher. Which is what exactly happens. End result, of course, Macias grounds out on the 1st pitch, and Dubois and Cubs fans cry.


"Don't worry about me skip! I'll suck ass no matter what the situation!"

So even going the traditional route, Dusty is a dumbass. But that's not the point. The point is that it's moronic to even bench Dubois in the first place. Dubois is a very good hitter. Dubois CAN hit right-handed pitching. He's proven that in his minor-league career. Why Dusty refuses to let this guy see right-handed pitching is mind-boggling. Dubois's left-handed platoon partner, the inferior Todd Hollandsworth, gets to see all the left-handed pitching his heart desires, even though Dubois, a lefty-killer, is anxiously waiting on the bench to win the game for his beloved Cubbies. But no, since Hollandsworth is 'proven', he's allowed to face lefties.

Such moronic nonsense.

And that's not even bringing up Dusty continuing to trot out LaTroy Hawkins for those important 1-run saves.

FIRE. DUSTY. BAKER.

Walker destroys Remmy, so let's put him in!

8/18 .444/.565/.722 1 HR (now 2). Those were Walker's numbers against Remmy. So what does Dusty do? He takes out Wuertz, who was cruising, and replaces him with a pitcher who has consistently struggled against lefties his whole career, and has especially struggled against Larry Walker. Absolutely mind-boggling. Well, it's not actually. See, Remlinger is a lefty, and so is Larry Walker! Nevermind the fact that looking at Larry's 3 year splits, he hasn't exactly struggled against left-handed pitching. And never mind the fact that it's known by everyone else in the universe that Remlinger gets right-handers out more effectively than left-handers. Statistics don't prove shit! 100 years of baseball tradition is the only way to go. Well, not the only way to go. Darren Baker's paper fortune teller has been Dusty's crutch for the extra-tough decisions that he's been forced to make.


Darren's homemade fortune teller, which guides Dusty's moronic decisions.

It's going to be a long, long, season...

Dusty responsible for injury to Nomar

In a terrible miscalculation, Dusty Baker drank his injury-healing Holy Water before the Chicago Cubs - St. Louis Cardinals game, potentially costing Baker's Cubs a chance at the playoffs.

Cubs shortstop Nomar Garciaparra injured his groin while hitting a grounder off of Cardinals pitcher Jeff Suppan. Immediately after swinging, Nomar collapsed and appeared to be in a world of pain.

Nomar made news before the game because of a telephone conversation with bench coach Dick Pole, where he told Pole to relay a message to Dusty to bat him lower. Garciaparra claims there was more to the conversation.

"I told Dick to make sure Dusty saves some of that Holy Water for me. I saw that it worked wonders for Mark Prior. I was willing to try anything at that point, but I guess it doesn't fuckin' matter now, eh?", Garciappara stated with a sarcastic tone.

Pole hurried to get the word to Dusty, but it was too late. Dusty had already consumed the half-bottle of Holy Water the night before, in celebration of the election of the new Pope.

"Dude, man, like I've said before, I ain't no Catholic, so I ain't hip to the Catholic traditions. I was under the impression that the period of time between when the Pope dies, and a new Pope was elected, Holy Water was to be used for strictly healing purposes, dude. So during that time, I used it to heal Prior's arm, and I spread it on Neifi's bat to temporarily turn him into Ernie Banks. Of course, since we have a new Pope, those powers wore off. It's like when you're going duck hunting, dude. You can use the duck whistles and the duck cologne to attract the ducks all you want, but eventually all that wears off. You'll have to turn to the old fashioned duck attracting substance, known as simple white bread. Of course, when it's hot and sunny out, one shouldn't use the white bread, the pumpernickel bread handles the sun a lot better, and generally delivers a higher quality duck....", rambled Dusty. Dusty continued to ramble for another 20 minutes, intertwining such subjects as boxing, whale watching, and rhythmic gymnastics.


Dusty reacts to being told by an umpire that the new Pope did not play Cliff Claven on Cheers.

The recent Dusty-induced Nomar injury only heightens the tension that the intelligent Cubs fan has with Mr. Baker. If any positive can come of this tragic event, it's that this will only help kick Dusty's sorry ass out of Chicago just a tad bit quicker.

Dusty to Install Heaters so Bullpen is Perpetually "Warmed Up"

In an unprecedented move, Dusty Baker is going to add nuclear heaters to the Cubs bullpen at Wrigley Field, and will carry portable versions of the heaters to the bullpens of opposing ballparks. Dusty has been criticized for many of his moves, but Cubs fans everywhere are praising this innovation by Dusty.


The Cubs' new bullpen heater


"Well, Dusty has no concept of getting his bullpen loose before he actually needs it, so this move will keep his relievers in a constant state of 'warm-uppedness,'" Cubs GM Jim Hendry said. "If only I could find a pen for his lineup card that was incapable of writing the letters 'M,' 'A,' 'C,' 'I,' and 'S.'"

Dusty worked up a sketch of the heater all by himself! "Dude, man. The thing just came to me in a daydream I had when I was walking my dog one day in my fishing buddy's boat. I just started gettin' to thinking about life and how life couldn't survive without heat and I started thinking how we need heat to live and how we needed a bullpen last year to make it into the post season, and I just thought that the two went together," Dusty rambled.


Somehow, scientists managed to come up with a workable prototype for the heater from Dusty's sketch.

Cubs starter Mark Prior applauded the move, but was upset that the idea hadn't occurred to Dusty before the infamous 2003 NLCS. "Where the hell were these heaters for Game Two, man? Damn. We were up 12-2 when he sent me back out there. Couldn't he have warmed up a bat boy or something?"

Dusty's next venture? Installing feces-proof sheets in his bed for every time he craps it when the Cubs have a late-inning lead.

Dusty Doesn't Screw Things up for Twenty-Three Hours!

In a record-setting day yesterday, Dusty Baker almost made it through an entire day without messing anything up. The Cubs had an off day, so Dusty was unable to concoct his usual hair-brained lineups for an entire day.

At the twenty-third hour of Dusty's stupidity-free day, though, he inadvertantly set off his smoke alarm by burning two pieces of whole wheat bread in the toaster. The toaster incident prevented Dusty from completing the perfect day, although the twenty-three hours shattered his previous record of not doing anything stupid by fifteen hours. The previous eight-hour record had been set as Dusty slept from 11:28 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. on August 12, 2001.


The offending toast

When asked for comment, Dusty's wife, Melissa, said, "Dusty was upset with himself for not completing the perfect day. He's always had such a difficult time with the appliances, especially the ones that use electricity."

"Fire Dusty Baker!" tried to reach Dusty for comment, but we could not hear what he was saying. We believe that he was trying to listen through the microphone part of his phone and talk into the earpiece part.

WANTED: FOR ACTS OF EXTREME STUPIDITY