A ‘last hurrah’ on hold: Dusty Baker waits out coronavirus for last chance to manage
Dusty Baker was supposed to be managing the most notorious team in American professional sports right now. Baker, the 70-year-old Sacramento legend and African American baseball pioneer, was supposed to be the new face of dignity leading the hated Houston Astros, who were recently busted by MLB for cheating to win in recent seasons.
Instead, COVID-19 has Baker sheltering in place at his Sacramento-area home with his wife and son Darren, an aspiring baseball player.
As opposed to managing the best and most hated team in the American League, Baker spends his afternoons watching Darren taking swings in the batting cage Baker had erected in his back yard.
His wine business, Baker Family Wines, is bottling and selling its current vintage out of his tasting room in West Sacramento. Baker owns a renewable energy company. He stays in touch with his new players by phone. He takes care of all his business calls in the morning so he can retire to the backyard and watch Darren stay in shape instead of playing ball in his senior season at Cal.
“It’s nice being at home but every day is ‘Ground Hog’s Day,’” Baker said by phone. “You don’t know one day from the next but I’m just trying to make the most of it.”
Baker’s new normal is all unexpected and disorienting.
He found out that Major League baseball was shutting down a month ago, nearing the end of spring training. Baker felt upended as he paused his life to go home for the sake of stopping the spread of the coronavirus.
He packed his things and returned to Sacramento thinking he would be home for a few days before returning to his final shot at winning a World Series as a manager in Houston.
He never made that trip back to Texas.
“I’m paying rent on a place in Houston I’ve never seen,” he said.
“Life can be hard. Life can be challenging,” he said. “But I’ve been through a whole bunch of stuff in my life and with people that has me semi-prepared for this.”
Baker overcomes obstacles
A review of the key moments in Baker’s life reveals a pattern of being thrown into situations he didn’t seek or want. Making the best of events he couldn’t control, or hated at first, has been the story of his remarkable life.
“I ask myself, ‘Why did my family leave Riverside for Sacramento so me and my brother could be the only African American students (at Del Campo High School in the late 1960s)”?
Baker became one of best prep athletes Sacramento has ever produced.
“Why did I get drafted by a team that played in the deep South (the Atlanta Braves) when I wanted to avoid the racism in the deep South (in the late 1960s and early 70s).”?
Becoming a Braves prospect thrust Baker into a Braves clubhouse where he was befriended by the great Hank Aaron. It was an experience that imprinted upon Baker the sacrifices that African American pioneers such as Aaron made so Baker and others could have opportunities of their own.
Baker was a very good big league player for parts of 19 seasons. But managing in baseball, a job few African Americans have held, became his professional Holy Grail.
Baker piloted the Giants for a winning decade, losing in the seventh game of the 2002 World Series after being mere outs from taking the title in Game 6.
Baker was in charge for successful runs by the Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals, taking each agonizingly close before falling short of his cherished goal in one spirit-crushing setback after another.
Wins and losses
In between jobs, during different times when Baker thought his managing career was over, he seethed before fate made him realize he was home for a reason.
He was in between jobs and home to be present with his brother Victor before he died. He was in between jobs and home when his father, Johnnie B. Baker Sr. died. He was home when his daughter Natosha ✓ got married, the ceremony in his backyard.
He’s home now with Darren, who hopes to get drafted by a big league team this year.
“After a while, you quit asking why,” Baker said. “You just accept the blessings that you get.”
That’s what Baker was doing at the end of last year, when he thought his career was over for good.
He was 70 and he saw jobs come and go while his phone didn’t ring. Baseball had moved away from veteran managers to young – almost entirely white – analytics guys with little experience.
Baker’s 1,863 career wins as a manager made him Hall of Fame worthy and leave him just 137 wins shy of 2,000, a mark only 11 managers have ever achieved.
The first 10 are in the Hall of Fame and No. 11, recently retired Giants manager Bruce Bochy, is a lock for future enshrinement.
Baker belongs in that group but it didn’t seem in the cards until one of the greatest scandals in the history of baseball opened a door.
This was one of the biggest American stories before the coronavirus. the Astros were found to have used video to steal the signs of opposing pitchers in previous seasons.
They had relayed pitch information to Astros hitters during their at-bats by using signals such as banging on a garbage can. If the can was banged in a certain cadence, the hitter knew what pitch was coming.
The story came to light last November and in January, Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow was suspended for a year by baseball and fired by the Astros. Manager A.J. Hinch was given the same punishment.
Baker’s phone rang. His reputation as a popular man of honor seemed the antidote to heal the team and change the Astros narrative.
But he was only given a one-year contract and the Astros, while reviled by fans and MLB opponents, were still loaded with talent and were title contenders in 2020 if Baker could get them past the scandal.
Who could have scripted this story? And yet, who was better suited for it than Johnnie B. Baker Jr., who had found success and fame by making the best of situations he neither sought, imagined or wanted?
“Getting a shot like this to manage a team of this caliber is kind of like a bad miracle,” Baker said.
As usual, Baker has a way of drawing eloquent words from his heart to describe a situation. In this case, a bad miracle seems apt for a rotten situation that created one last shot for a good man to manage a team to a World Series title.
Astros scandal, then pandemic
He knew it would be rough at first, when the media and fans got their first crack at “the cheaters” in Astros uniforms.
But, my goodness, it was much worse than anyone could have imagined.
As soon as spring training began in February, it was like daily target practice for baseball scribes wielding poison pens and pointed questions that Baker tried to address as he always has – with honesty, humility and accountability.
He succeeded in speaking truth, but the media found those qualities wanting in his players.
“People talk about forgiveness but very few forgive,” Baker said. “Spring training was short but it seemed long. It really showed me how mad America was at this scandal.”
Before anyone began to shelter in place, Baker sought shelter from disgrace for his new players at the Astros’ Florida spring training facilities.
How bad was it? A pandemic brought relief from the daily inquisition.
It brought relief from the booing and catcalls of fans and from little kids telling Baker to his face that his players were cheaters.
“I’ve never felt that kind of hostility and anger,” Baker said. “Our players were booed unmercifully. I just told them, ‘You gotta put your big boy pants on in. You gotta wear it.’”
When asked what his strategy was going in, Baker said: “How do you strategize for something you never experienced before? My strategy was to be honest. But what more can (players) do? You ask for forgiveness but you can’t give a pound of flesh.”
Baker said he was with the Astros long enough to like them as a group – as men and as players.
“They are the best team I’ve had,” he said, comparing them to his last Nationals team that won 97 games. Sadly, the Nats won a World Series last season without Baker..
Someday soon, he’ll think about baseball and winning and his most cherished goal – but not now.
“This is the hands of the Lord, the doctors, the experts and the pandemic itself,” he said.
Baker had nothing to add to rumors that baseball might start up again within months, but in empty stadiums so social distancing is preserved.
“I don’t know, man,” Baker said. “They are gonna do what they are gonna do. Whatever they are gonna do is going to come after a lot of thought…Right now, baseball is secondary to all of this. I’ve never watched CNN so much in my life as the death toll keeps going up.”
So Baker waits at home, sheltering in place, gratified that he is home with his loved ones, hoping the world is healed enough so that he – like all of us – can go back to living his life.
“I’m 70 now,” Baker said. “This is my last hurrah.”
