Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker (right) greets Texas Rangers manager Bruce Bochy (left) before game 1 of the ALCS at Minute Maid Field in Houston on Sun Oct 15, 2023. Baker announced his retirement from baseball after game 7 of the ALCS on Mon Oct 23, 2023 (AP News photo)
That’s Amaury News and Commentary
By Amaury Pi-González
Dusty Baker announced he is retiring after concluding the seventh game of the American League Championship. His team lost in seven games to the now-American League Champion Texas Rangers.
As a player, Dusty had a stellar career as an outfielder during 19 seasons with the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants, and Oakland Athletics; he hit 242 home runs with 1,981 hits with a .278 batting average. In 1986, he retired as a player with the Oakland A’s, the team that showcased the Rookie of the Year that season in José Canseco.
Dusty, a gracious man whom I would often interview in Spanish many times, was always thinking baseball, and It did not surprise me when he launched a managerial career. I never met a player that said anything that wasn’t complimentary about Dusty Baker, the ultimate player manager.
I had the privilege of covering and traveling with Dusty Baker’s San Francisco Giants, the first major league team he managed from 1993 to 2002. I remember many conversations we had and interviews pre and post-game, especially during the first years of his managing with the Giants. He told me that “minority managers want that first interview, the opportunity to show what they can do.”
He won the 2002 NL pennant and took the team to the World Series against the Anaheim Angels, who won it all that year. He would continue as skipper with stops in Chicago with the Cubs, Cincinnati with the Reds, Washington with the Nationals, and finally, the last four years (2020-2023) with the Houston Astros, culminating with a World Series title in 2002.
During this 2023 season, he took the Astros to game seven of the ALCS and lost to the streaky Texas Rangers. In one Spring Training with the Cincinnati Reds as manager, Dusty introduced me to a young pitcher from Cuba named Aroldis Chapman who was then throwing at a velocity of 105 mph.
Dusty was an “old school” manager; not many left these days. After announcing his retirement from managing just hours after the Rangers beat his Astros, he is now free from the grind of managing, and his baseball on-the-field duties are done during a successful Hall of Fame career. Dusty ended #7 on the list of all-time winning managers with a record 2,183-1,862.
Only Connie Mack, Tony LaRussa, John McGraw, Bobby Cox, Joe Torre, and Sparky Anderson ended ahead of Dusty Baker. All these managers ahead of Dusty are in the Hall of Fame. If elected to the HOF, as he should, Dusty Baker will be the first African-American manager in Cooperstown.
Johnnie B. “Dusty” Baker will not have to deal anymore with some 25 year-old in the front office telling him about the science of baseball, known now as Sabermetrics; the analysis of baseball through statistics. We might see Dusty talking baseball on television, maybe MLB Network and such, but I do believe he will not return to managing, he has a lot of life left to live with his family, after all Baseball was his life, but not all of life is Baseball.
Felicidades Dusty!
Amaury Pi Gonzalez does News and Commentary each week at http://www.sportsradioservice.com
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