Dusty Baker’s bright smile, genuine care and love for people will live on in his remarkable baseball legacy as much as that signature toothpick, his baseball wisdom and winning into his mid-70s.
Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker Jr. answers questions from the media during a baseball press conference announcing his retirement, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker Jr. speaks during a baseball press conference announcing his retirement, Thursday, Oct. 26, 2023, at Minute Maid Park in Houston. Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker Jr. walks out of the press conference room announcing his retirement from baseball, Thursday, Oct.
“Do you ever make peace with it?” he said in 2018 while out of uniform following his firing by the Nationals. “You make peace, but it makes you kind of lose some faith in mankind, between right and wrong. And you realize in the world, especially in this new world, there’s always been discrimination, race discrimination, but it seems like in this new world there’s age and salary discrimination, which go hand in hand.
A renaissance man who lived his life between the lines and on the dugout’s top step, he once shared how he smoked a joint with Jimi Hendrix early in his career. Baker was up close for so much history over the decades, from standing in the on-deck circle for the Braves when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s record then for so many of Barry Bonds’ drives during his successful quest to become home run king.
“Dusty’s very unique,” Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servais said in July. “The fact he’s pretty fluent in Spanish, he touches all the different diversity you have amongst your team — whether it’s the Black guys, the white guys, the Latin guy, he can touch it all. And I learned a lot from that.” “All my training came from my dad, who was my coach,” Baker shared last season, “but it was different back in the day, because negative motivation was real. Like I’d say, ‘OK, I’ll show you’ if somebody tells you you can’t do something. Now negative motivation doesn’t work. And how many of those coaches were high-level players at some point in time? I was always told that good players don’t make good coaches. Well, I totally disagree because the good players realize how hard it was to play.
In spring 2014, while he was between jobs, he underwent a minor heart procedure. That came after an 11-game stint away from the Reds late in 2012 — including the NL Central clincher and Homer Bailey’s no-hitter — while healing from a mini-stroke and irregular heartbeat.“I never knew depression,” Baker said. “I’ve got nothing to be bitter about. Life’s good for me. I’m not saying I don’t wake up upset every once in a while. I make sure I don’t stay there.
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