James Hendry (born July 27, 1955) is an American baseball coach and executive. He is a special assistant for New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, and is a former general manager of the Chicago Cubs. Hendry was promoted to Cubs general manager on July 5, 2002, by former Cubs President/CEO Andy MacPhail. He worked for the Cubs from 1995 to 2011. Prior to his promotion to GM, he was named Assistant GM/Player Personnel Director on October 12, 2001, and previously the Director of Player Development, in charge of both Scouting and Minor League Operations. He was a coach for the Creighton Bluejays of Creighton University from 1984 to 1991. Early life Hendry graduated from Spring Hill College, where he had majored in communications and journalism. He could not find a job in broadcasting, and took a job as a high school teacher and baseball coach in Miami. This led to a job at Creighton University in 1983, and he was promoted to head coach in the middle of the 1984 season. Following Creighton's 1991 College World Series appearance, Hendry was named National Coach of the Year. He left Creighton later that year to become special assistant to then Florida Marlins GM Dave Dombrowski, and also coached minor league teams in 1993 and '94. Jim has two kids, Lauren and John. Tenure with Cubs Hendry's tenure as general manager produced mixed results. In 2003, the Cubs made their first playoff appearance in the Hendry era, but just three years later, Hendry's Cubs had the worst record in the National League. One of his first moves provided fodder for critics and boosters alike: late in spring training 2002, he dealt Julián Tavárez and Dontrelle Willis to the Florida Marlins for pitchers Matt Clement and Antonio Alfonseca. The deal produced mixed results; Clement was the Cubs' most consistent pitcher in 2002 and continued to be valuable in 2003, while Tavarez's volatile behavior was a distraction to the Cubs in 2001. On the downside, Alfonseca struggled while a Cub, and the minor league pitcher traded to the Marlins was Dontrelle Willis, the 2003 Rookie of the Year. The Cubs did not contend in 2002, and Hendry fired manager Don Baylor in July, replacing him with Iowa Cubs manager Bruce Kimm on an interim basis. The Cubs staggered to the end of the season in 2002, and Hendry purged several veterans from the roster.