How long was jim hendry with the cubs

Of all active general managers in Major League Baseball, Hendry is among the longest-tenured. He has worked with the Cubs since , and was appointed general manager of the team in the middle of the season. Under Hendry's reign, which has spanned eight seasons and portions of two more, the Cubs experienced some success. In , they were famously a mere five outs away from reaching their first World Series since , and they captured back-to-back N. Central titles in and However, the Cubs have regressed in recent years, and their mark has them far removed from contention in In , the club came as close to a World Series as any Cubs team since , but after the fall of , the club struggled for several seasons with a worse record in each successive season until the end of However, after not renewing manager Dusty Baker's contract, the resignation of long-time team President Andy MacPhail, and the significant increase in player budgets, the Cubs went from last to first in Through mid-June in , the Cubs had the best record in baseball.

Hendry was born on July 27, in Dunedin, Florida. He attended Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama where he received a bachelor's degree in communications and journalism. Originally, he wanted to be a broadcaster, but he couldn't find a job.

As a result, Hendry took a job as a high school teacher. Part of his duties also included serving as an assistant coach to the varsity team. After one year, and a summer spent in the Cape Cod summer league, Hendry became the varsity baseball head coach at Columbus High School in Miami. After three more years, Hendry was hired by Creighton University's athletic director Dan Offenburger.

Hendry moved to the Nebraska school in as an assistant coach, and a year and a half later was promoted to head coach when the current coach was fired. In , Hendry was hired by the Cubs as the new director of player development. Over the next seven years, Hendry held various positions within the Cubs organization. In , Hendry oversaw the final months of a struggling team that would finish One of his first decisions as GM was to allow Bruce Kimm, an interim manager with the club to finish the season.

Kimm was roundly criticised for granting Fred McGriff significant amounts of playing time so that the aging first baseman could achieve the 30 homerun mark for his fifth team. Following the season, Hendry convinced many of his critics that he was supremely qualified for the job.

Everybody lost a good friend today. He did the best for the players and for the team, too. The year-old Hendry was named general manager in July and he spent 17 years overall with the organization.

He paused several times to compose himself while talking with reporters. Questions about my personal future can wait for another time. What Mr. Ricketts does is his own business, though. There were too many misses recently. Dempster got in a shouting match with his manager, the disabled list has been crowded, and Carlos Zambrano - who criticized his own closer early in the year - was banished from the team for a month after walking out of the clubhouse on a night he surrendered five home runs.

Yet fat contracts for Zambrano, Soriano and Aramis Ramirez have always had fans wanting more from their stars, and the only move the Cubs made at the trade deadline last month was dealing outfielder Kosuke Fukudome to Cleveland. Somebody has to pay the price. The next year, Hendry landed pitcher Greg Maddux and traded for Nomar Garciaparra to set the Cubs up for another playoff run - only to watch them blow the wild-card lead in the final week of the season.

Before that, Hendry spent three seasons with the Marlins and eight seasons as head coach of the Creighton Blue Jays, where he was named the National Coach of the Year after leading Creighton to a third-place finish in the College World Series. Bush, 52, has been the assistant general manager with the Cubs for five seasons. He played 12 seasons with the Twins and won two championships and I understand that the new GM will come in and evaluate who fits where and how it all fits going forward.

But this has been a great opportunity for me.