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.