CINCINNATI — The Cincinnati Reds today announced that Major League coaches Mark Berry, Billy Hatcher, Brook Jacoby and Dick Pole along with bullpen catcher Mike Stefanski will be offered contracts for the 2008 season.

The club also announced that bullpen coach Tom Hume will not be offered a contract and that bench coach Pat Kelly has been reassigned within the organization.

The bullpen coach and bench coach vacancies on new manager Dusty Baker’s staff will be filled in the near future.

Berry will return for his 25th season in the organization and for his 10th year on the Major League coaching staff. He has been the club’s third base coach the last 4 seasons.

Hatcher has been with the organization for 2 years, both as first base coach.

Jacoby and Pole will return for their second seasons as hitting coach and pitching coach, respectively.

Stefanski will return for his fifth straight season as bullpen catcher. Hume was with the organization for 11 seasons as bullpen coach and for 1 season (2006) as pitching coach. Kelly will return as manager of the organization’s Gulf Coast League Sarasota affiliate and as director of Florida on-field operations, positions he held last season until he was named interim manager Pete Mackanin’s bench coach on July 3.

It looks like the MLB Players Association (MLBPA) lost their case about players' stats being personal property. That's good news, not only for fantasy sites, but for blogs and other places that utilize that information.

The case didn't make much sense to me. How could there be ownership of publicly available information?

Our friends at Home Run Derby are hypothesizing that everyone’s favorite slugger, Barry Bonds, could be interested in coming to Cincinnati to reunite with Dusty Baker.

Just imagine: an outfield of Adam Dunn, Barry Bonds, and Ken Griffey, Jr.

I bet people would lay off Dunn’s defense.

You can find the press conference where the Reds management announced Dusty Baker at Reds.com.

The Crack Technical Staff is encouraged by some of the things he has to say. You might be too. Me? I’m moved by this particular quote from Dusty:

I’ll never let you win. I’ll let you get close.

So, it looks like Dusty Baker has signed on with the Reds for three years. Dusty Baker. He whose managing quirks we have seen first hand for so very long.

I was just saying earlier today that I thought I might need a break from the blogging scene. I didn’t expect it to be three years long, but Baker’s not likely to last three years anyway, so it might just work out after all.

I wonder if I can get “fireDustyBaker.com” from that Cubs guy. In the meantime, you can listen to the heartbreak in my voice in this episode of the Red Hot Broadcast. Whether there are further episodes will depend on whether my need to express my rage outweighs my need to demonstrate how severely the Reds have alienated me.

Episode 79: Dusty Baker as Reds Manager (12.8MB, 18:42)

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