Post #21

Wrapping up the 2022 Season, Part Two

November 30, 2022

Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them. Abraham Lincoln

Dusty Baker reaches the Mountaintop

One of the interesting things about being a long time fan of any sport is how you eventually get to know quite a bit about individual players, who you have not and never will actually meet. They become like some distant cousin who you routinely hear snippets of gossip about as you go through life. Of course, the flipside of this is that they do not and never will know you from a pothole in the street. The name ‘Dusty’ Baker immediately brings two things to mind. First, his three-year-old son Darren, serving as a batboy for the San Francisco Giants, was saved by J. T. Snow from possibly getting run over at home plate during game Five of the 2002 World Series.* Secondly, the claim that Glenn Burke, his teammate, supposedly invented the “High Five” by forcing Baker to slap his upraised hand on October 2nd, 1977, to celebrate Baker’s 30th home run of the season. For a lifelong Baseball fan, these might be the highlights of a thousand pieces (or more) of facts in their memory bank about the man. And they would be jumbled in with everything from the fact that Dusty Baker always seems to have a toothpick in his mouth to the fact that Baker has been married twice to the fact that many Chicago Cubs’ fans will always blame him for ruining Kerry Wood and Mark Pryor’s arms. Taking the good with the bad and knowing all that I know about Dusty Baker, I must admit that I am happy that Baker, in his 25th year as a Major League manager, finally led his team to victory in the 2022 World Series.

*Time Flies Department: Darren Baker, the three year old batboy, now plays in the minor Leagues.

The Playing Career of Dusty Baker

Born in 1949, Johnnie “Dusty” Baker’s birthplace was Riverside, California, and he spent his formative years in the Golden State. He has always seemed to be a combination of competitive drive and Californian cool (not exactly a hippie but laidback). He made his 1968 Major League debut with the Atlanta Braves, where his mentor was Henry Aaron. After the 1975 season, the Braves traded him back home to the Los Angeles Dodgers. From 1976 to 1983, he patrolled the outfield for Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda. His career faded out from 1984 to 1986 in upstate California with the San Francisco area teams (Giants and Oakland Athletics). His career path was somewhat odd. Dusty Baker had both an early [1972-73] and late peak [1980-82] but a long slough of lesser seasons from 1974 to 1979 [except perhaps 1977]. If his career had a more normal trajectory, Dusty Baker would have had, just as a player, a border line Hall of Fame career. Using Baseball Reference’s “Wins Above Replacement” [WAR] formula, Baker ended his career with a respectable 37.0 WAR. Usually a career total of 50.0 WAR or so is where any Baseball Hall of Fame discussion really begins in the initial Baseball Writer’s vote (the Veterans Committees, or back door to the Hall, has much looser standards). All in all, Dusty Baker had a very fine career as a player.

*Dusty Baker had 5.1 WAR in 1972 and 4.6 WAR in 1980. If he had averaged just 4.0 WAR from 1973 to 1980, he would have finished with 47.1 WAR, right on the Hall of Fame margins.

The Managerial Career of Dusty Baker

After his playing career ended, Dusty Baker reportedly briefly worked as a stock broker. Having a soul, Baker quickly returned to Baseball, working as the first base and/or hitting coach for the San Francisco Giants from 1988 to 1992. In 1993, Dusty Baker replaced Roger Craig as the Giants’ manager (the same year that Barry Bonds joined the team). In Baseball writer Bill James’ book about Major League managers, James assigned managers to various families. In other words, if you played for John McGraw and later became a Major League manager, you would be in the McGraw family. Of course, this is an over-simplification. James was actually trying to track who influenced who. But, by this logic and in actual reality, Dusty Baker is very much in the Tommy Lasorda managerial family. Lasorda was famous for his: “we are family” style of managing. In other words, Lasorda wanted to bond his teams together as a unit. In many ways, this is now an out-of-style managerial method. Modern managerial strategy is usually all about analytics (calculating what is the best strategy at any time using mathematical formulas). A pure analytical manager will change out players, regardless of their feelings, to gain the slightest edge. A family style manager is more interested in letting his players know that he believes in them and asking his players to rise to the occasion. Dusty Baker, like Tommy Lasorda, has always tried to manage his players as a family unit.

Dusty Baker spent ten seasons (1993-2002) as the San Francisco Giants’ field manager. He was able to manage the prickly Barry Bonds, but was also there when Bonds decided to turn himself into a steroid monster. It does not seem like any bad karma attached to Baker from that fact. In his first season there, Baker led the Giants to a 103-59 record and also won his first ‘Manager of the Year’ award. But the Giants finished second to the 104-58 Atlanta Braves. The Giants had three losing seasons from 1994 to 1996 before being consistently good from 1997 to 2002. Baker won two more ‘Manager of the Year’ awards and, in 2002, led his 95-67 Giants into the World Series against the Anaheim Angels. On the verge of winning the World Series in Game Six, Baker made some questionable pitching moves that may have cost the Giants the World Championship. But that is hindsight. The Angels eventually won the World Series in seven games. Let go by the Giants, Dusty Baker signed to manage the Chicago Cubs. He led the Cubs into the National League Championship Series in 2003. Up three games to two in the best of seven series and with a 3 to 0 lead in the eighth inning of the sixth game,* the Cubs totally unraveled in that fateful eighth inning due to a controversial non-call of fan interference, an unfortunate error, and some poor pitching that resulted in an 8-3 loss for the Cubbies. Their opponents, the eventual 2003 World Champion Florida Marlins, then eliminated the Cubs with a 9-6 victory in game seven.

*The Cubs were just five outs away from advancing to the 2003 World Series, with a 3-0 lead, when it all went to hell.

Losing two consecutive seemingly very winnable series to the eventual World Champion teams in 2002 and 2003 plus the fact that his best team finished second in 1993 despite winning 103 games, the narrative about Dusty Baker as a Manager became one of: “close but no cigar.” Baker managed the Cubs for three more years [2003-2006] but the team regressed after injuries took out the Cubs ace pitchers, Pryor and Wood. He next managed the Cincinnati Reds for six years [2008-2013]. Taking over a team that had finished 72-90 in 2007, the Reds improved under Baker and finished first in 2010 [91-71] and in 2012 [97-65]. The 2010 Reds were simply blown out in three straight games (best of 5) by the Philadelphia Phillies in the Divisional Series. But the 2012 Reds added to the narrative that Baker could not win in the post season. Up by two games in a best of 5 series, the Reds lost game 3 in ten innings by a score of 2-1 and then dropped both the 4th and 5th games to the eventual World Champion San Francisco Giants. Let go by the Reds after a third place 90-72 finish in 2013, it seemed like Baker might be out of chances to manage. But, in 2016 and 2017, Baker managed two more seasons for the Washington Nationals. His teams finished 95-67 and then 97-65 but lost in the Divisional Series to the Dodgers and Cubs respectively. Let go after the 2nd consecutive Divisional Series loss, Baker was seemingly retired in 2019 when the Nationals won the World Series and Baker celebrated his 70th birthday. Once again, his days as a Major League manager seemed to be over.

But fate was not finished with Dusty Baker yet. The Houston Astros franchise had been rocked by a sign-stealing scandal that tarnished their 2017 World Championship. Looking for a well-regarded manager to deflect some of the bad publicity, the Astros settled on Baker. In the 2020 shortened Covid year, the Astros finished 29-31 under Baker, but still got into the expanded play-offs. The Astros got all the way to the American League Championship Series for the right to go to the 2020 World Series before falling to the Tampa Bay Rays. Notably, the Astros went down 3 games to none before winning three straight to force a seventh and final game, which they lost. In 2021, Baker’s Astros finished 95-67 and then fought all the way to the World Series, which they lost in six games without much of a fight. Dusty Baker would graciously accept his defeat by his mentor’s team in the year that Henry Aaron passed away. In 2022, the Astros finished the season with a 106-56 record, the best ever by a Baker led team. They rampaged through the post-season, ending their year by defeating the over-matched Philadelphia Phillies in the World Series. In six sweet games, the Astros ended Baker’s “Always a Groomsman, never a Groom” jinx. Now all that remains is to find out whether the World Champion manager Dusty Baker can pull an Elway.*

* John Elway, the 37-year-old quarterback of the Denver Broncos, won his very first Superbowl in 1997 (after losing his first three). In 1998, he won his second in a row at the age of 38.

Despite the vague feeling that the Houston Astros should have their 2022 World Championship trophy shoved where the sun doesn’t shine because of the 2017 scandal, it is still impossible not to be happy for Dusty Baker. With the 2022 World Championship feather in his cap, the election of Dusty Baker to the Baseball Hall of Fame became unavoidable. Where there was once just possibility, there is now inevitability. Rather than the story revolving around how Baker never won his ring, the narrative can now focus on just how good a manager that he has been. In 25 years as a Baseball Field Manager, Dusty Baker has sixteen seasons of 86 or more wins, twelve of these seasons with more than 90 wins, and two of over 100. It is often said that a good manager simply establishes an atmosphere conducive to winning; and then does not do anything that would knock the team off course. Dusty Baker has proven himself capable of establishing a winning clubhouse with multiple teams. His managerial resume is really quite impressive, even before his team won the 2022 World Series. His eventual election to the Baseball Hall of Fame will be well deserved.

The Historical Context of Dusty Baker

One thing that certainly separates Baseball from the other major sports is the depth of its history. In an earlier post, I speculated that Baseball has entered its Third Age. The First Age was the Age of Segregation (1871 to 1945). The Second Age was the Age of Integration (1946 to 2020). I tentatively named the Third Age (currently just 2021 to 2022): the International Age. But another possible name for the current Age would be: the Age of Analytics. Of course, historical divisions are simply a historian’s concepts. But real life does actually have turning points. Each Age of Baseball originated with a major turning point in the sport. In 1871, the First Age of Baseball commenced with the formation of the first professional League. In 1946, the Second Age began with the signing of African-American player Jackie Robinson to an Organized Baseball contract, beginning the integration of the Black and White Baseball worlds. The dividing lines between the Second and Third Ages are not quite so distinct. But the International CoVid pandemic wiped out the 2020 season. Los Angeles Angels Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani replaced his teammate Mike Trout as the best player in Baseball in 2021 (and looks to maintain that title for some time). On January 22nd of 2021, Henry Aaron, the last Negro Leaguer to play regularly in the Major Leagues, passed away. Then Aaron’s long time team, the Atlanta Braves won the 2021 World Series playing before suburban fans in a stadium built expressly to escape the multi-cultural urban center of Atlanta. It certainly feels like a dividing line between the Age of Integration and the next Age had been crossed.

The career of Dusty Baker is deeply tied to the Age of Integration. Although it has not been mentioned before now in this post, Baker is an African-American man. He grew up during the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. Baker signed with the Atlanta Braves only after Henry Aaron, the best player on the Braves and probably the most respected Black player in the game, promised Baker’s mother that Aaron would look after Dusty like his own son.* Henry Aaron, not Tommy Lasorda, was Dusty Baker’s true mentor. Baker was famously the on-deck hitter when Henry Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s lifetime home run record on April 8th of 1974. Baker saw the extent of the racist abuse that Aaron had to take first hand. Dusty Baker’s career can even be traced back through Henry Aaron to Jackie Robinson’s initial integration of the Major Leagues. In 1987, Al Campanis, Robinson’s former white teammate and an executive of the Los Angeles Dodgers, embarrassed and humiliated himself on live television by asserting that African-Americans did not have the mental capacity to manage a Major League baseball team. The Major Leagues hired an African-American civil rights activist and well-known sociologist, Harry Edwards to devise a plan to promote diversity in their managerial and executive positions. The more cynically inclined would say that they actually hired Edwards for the publicity that the problem was being addressed. One of the first Baseball people to contact Edwards and offer to help was Al Campanis himself. When Edwards asked Campanis who he would recommend as a African-American managerial or executive prospect, Al Campanis reportedly immediately brought up Dusty Baker’s name.

*Henry Aaron’s children, who were a little younger than Dusty Baker, apparently called him: “Uncle Dusty.”

In one of the odd twists of history, the Houston Astros did not have a Black American on their active roster as they captured the 2022 World Series (their one player of African-American heritage, Michael Brantley, spent the World Series on the disabled list). Of course, the Astros did have multiple players on the team with African heritage. But they were all from Latin America. Is there a better coda to the Age of Integration than a Black man managing a team to the title despite having no African-American players on the roster? There is also the fact that, in the Age of Analytics, Dusty Baker was an unabashedly old school manager.* In fact, Baker was more than just an old fashioned manager. Unlike Tommy Lasorda, whose “we are family” philosophy had a good deal of shtick (a comic theme or gimmick) in it, Dusty Baker was far more like mentor Henry Aaron. He took an actual and personal interest in his players, all of his players, whether they were Black, White, Latin, or whatever. What better coda for the Age of Integration than a manager who treated his very diverse roster as a family? In many ways, the 2022 World Series victory of Dusty Banker and his Houston Astros serves as a fitting conclusion to the Age of Integration. All that being said, Willie Mays still lives.

* Dusty Baker reportedly said to his Astro players at one point: “(Expletive) exit velocity? (Double expletive) exit velocity? How about (expletive) hits!

Addendum 1:

One of my favorite Baseball stories has always been: Henry Aaron’s advice to Dusty Baker about batting against Bob Gibson (perhaps the most intimidating pitcher that ever lived). It went something like this: “Don’t look at him, don’t talk to him, don’t dig in at the plate, and don’t react when he throws at you. And, for God’s sake, don’t charge the mound after you get decked. He was a Gold Gloves boxer and he’ll kick your ass.”

Addendum 2:

No one ever seems to talk about how cool Johnnie (Dusty) Baker’s nickname is. It always reminded me of an old nursery rhyme (Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker or Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief). Dusty Baker is more subtle than the obvious Dusty Rhodes and better than a made up equivalent (condition & occupation) such as: Batty Carpenter, Tubby Pope, Bloody Farmer, Sunny Painter, Salty Singer, or Dirty Gardener. The story goes that Baker got his ‘Dusty’ nickname from his parents because he always played in only part of their lawn not covered by grass.

Addendum 3:

Johnnie ‘Dusty’ Baker apparently had another Baseball nickname at one time. While playing in the Puerto Rican Winter League in the early 1970s, Baker got drunk one night. Suffering from his booze binge the next day, his teammates gave him some fish soup, a local hangover remedy. Then the team went on a long bus trip to play that day’s away game. Feeling nauseous, Baker wanted the bus to pull over so he could throw up. Apparently on a tight schedule or just lacking in empathy, the bus driver refused and told Baker to stick his head out the window to throw up. Dusty Baker did and vomited all over the side of the bus. From that day on, Baker’s nickname in Puerto Rico was “Mondongo” which was the name of the soup he upchucked.* Hopefully the bus driver had to clean it up himself; but Dusty Baker is still better than Mondongo Baker.

*Mondongo soup is apparently a Puerto Rican dish made from the fish Tripe.

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