Coming home: Sacramento’s Dusty Baker shows he can still adapt to baseball’s changes

On Monday morning, Dusty Baker called the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City to let him know he soon would be visiting. A medley of songs by Tupac Shakur played and the Houston Astros were less than three hours from opening a series against the A’s.

But the winningest active manager in Major League Baseball had a variety of things on his mind.

As he sat in the small, windowless manager’s office in the visiting clubhouse, Baker thought about his mother, Freddie Christine Baker who died in Sacramento on Jan. 31 at 90. He was thinking about the work he does to help people experiencing homelessness, motivated in part by his late brother, Victor Baker who died in 2019 at 63.

And while it was far from the only thing he talked about in an exclusive interview with The Bee, the 72-year-old Baker, who moved to the Sacramento area as a teenager, lives in suburban Granite Bay in the offseason, and has multiple local business concerns, thought about how good it felt to be home.

“It feels great,” Baker said. “Even felt great getting off the plane last night in cold San Francisco. … I’m a Californian. I’ve liked other places, but this is where I like the best.”

It’s where he could spend the rest of his life, too, whenever his time in Houston ends. Baker, the second-oldest manager in baseball after 77-year-old Chicago White Sox skipper Tony La Russa, told reporters after the Astros lost the World Series last season that he had “unfinished business.”

Hall of Fame numbers

At 2,017 wins entering Monday, most of any manager not in the Hall of Fame, a World Series victory would seemingly cement the enshrinement for Baker, who’s also had managerial stints with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds and Washington Nationals.

And at 30-18 entering Monday, with a 2.90 staff ERA, Houston appears once again to have excellent postseason odds. But the team entered that day hitting just .230, with Baker saying, “I think the lockout hurt the hitters more than it hurt the pitchers.”

The 2Pac songs that played in Baker’s office while he spoke to The Bee were, in chronological order, “Dear Mama,” “Ambitionz az a Ridah,” “Until the End of Time” and “Changes.”

That first song, a slow and tender ballad, was fitting. Baker’s still adjusting to life without his mother, who died of natural causes spurred by dementia, according to her obituary. (Baker’s father, Johnnie B. Baker, who served in the Navy in the Philippines during World War II, died in 2009 at 84.)

“It’s been a little strange, a little strange, especially when I come back here, not to talk to my mom,” Baker said. “It was real strange on Mother’s Day, on her birthday, and I was kind of like, I was kind of numb.”

Already, he’d been losing friends in recent years.

“Nobody loves to win more than me and (is) more competitive,” Baker said. “But you just realize that life is – life supersedes baseball and everything.”

It’s interesting. Baker’s in his 25th season as a manager. He’s won at least 90 games 11 times, and also had a very good, 19-year playing career. But some of the things that appear to matter most to him happen pretty far from the baseball diamond, such as Baker’s work with the homeless in both Sacramento and Houston.

“My brother was homeless for awhile,” said Baker, who described Victor as being what he termed manic depressive. “There’s a special spot in my heart for the people that are homeless.”

Baker decried “society that knows nothing about mental illness but putting ‘em in jail.”

He does what he can to make a difference, saying he takes “all my clothes” to Loaves & Fishes, the largest service provider in the Sacramento region for people experiencing homelessness. Baker tries to help in other ways, too, providing food and, according to Houston Style Magazine, partnering with the Astros Foundation to distribute 3,000 protective masks in 2020 to homeless in the Houston area.

“No matter what you do, it seems like not enough,” Baker said.

Still growing

But change and growth is possible, such as Baker’s apparent evolution as a manager. There had been a perception in years past of Baker not being willing to adapt to Major League Baseball’s analytics revolution. While Baker did famously say, many years ago, that he thought walks were overrated, the perception that might have once existed about him is, at this point, simplistic and outdated.

For one thing, Baker talks sabermetrics with 23-year-old son Darren Baker, whom he had with wife Melissa Baker. The younger Baker starred at the University of California, Berkeley and is now playing in the Washington Nationals’ system.

“He explains some of the sabermetrics,” Baker said. “I explain some of the baseball stuff to him, which he’s very knowledgeable about, how to play this game.”

To Baker, who briefly sold stocks in the late 1980s after his playing career ended, both sides of the game are important.

“I’d feel totally unprepared unless I had my information,” Baker said as he sat at his desk, writing pregame preparations. “That’s how I’ve always been, you know what I mean? Always. It doesn’t bother me too much, but I mean, it bothers me, ‘Dusty is just on his gut.’ I’m a studier.”

It’s safe to say Baker’s approach is resonating.

“I hear from guys and ex-teammates that play for him … that the guy is unbelievable,” A’s shortstop Elvis Andrus said. “They really enjoy playing for him. You can see it from the other side.”

Part of Baker’s secret as a manager? Not treating the men he manages as simply means to an end. “He cares about you not only as a player, but as a person,” Astros second baseman Jose Altuve told The Bee.

Helping people grow

Keena Turner, who’s known Baker since his days as a San Francisco 49ers linebacker, and made the drive in from Tracy with his son on Monday, sees a similar quality in his longtime friend. “I think guys love playing for Dusty not just because of the kind of guy he is, but he actually has helped them grow – grow as players and grow as young men,” Turner said.

Baker’s age might also play a role in putting his players at ease, with Astros reliever Rafael Montero saying through an interpreter, “The biggest thing, he kind of looks like my grandfather, so whenever I see him, I always think of my grandfather a little bit.”

It’s uncertain if Baker will manage beyond this season, with him saying in response to a question about whether this was his last year, “I don’t know. I’ll let God tell me what to do.”

That appears to be good enough for his players, who say that whether or not he’ll return next season hasn’t been discussed with the team. “Either way, what he’s done has been unbelievable in this game,” Astros infielder Alex Bregman said. “He’s left a lasting impact on so many players and I think he’ll be a great manager however long he wants to manage.”

For now, Baker’s looking forward to Kansas City, where the Astros kick off against the Royals on Friday and where Baker will see Negro Leagues Baseball Museum President Bob Kendrick.

Baker spoke reverently of the pioneers of Black baseball who came before him, men like Satchel Paige, who Baker met when he was called up to the Braves in 1968; Cool Papa Bell, who Baker got to visit at his house with Jim Gilliam; and Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe, a legendary character who “used to crack me up.”

“Now people are curious,” Baker said. “But before, people, it seemed like they didn’t really care too much.”

And whether it’s on his radar, Baker inspires admiring talk as well from young A’s players such as Parker Markel.

“This is my first time seeing him in person so it’ll be cool to see him in the dugout, in person,” Markel said prior to Monday’s game. “I mean, the guy’s a legend, so anytime you have a chance to play against a guy like that, it’s exciting stuff.”

This story was originally published June 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.