Dusty Baker mentioned his life hasn’t modified a lot since his longtime quest to handle a World Series champion got here to fruition final yr.
“The only difference has been life in the world,” Baker mentioned. “I’m noticing now more than ever that I’ve gotten smarter now, according to other people.”
After profitable a three-game sequence towards the Chicago White Sox on Sunday on the South Side, Baker‘s Astros return to Houston on Monday to start a three-game sequence towards the Cubs.
It is perhaps the ultimate time Baker faces his former crew, which he managed for 4 memorable seasons from 2003-06.
Baker, 73, signed a one-year deal after final yr’s title and doesn’t know what the long run holds. The Astros may go in a unique path, or he would possibly resolve to hold it up and watch his son, Darren, play.
Darren, a 24-year-old second baseman who was teammates with Andrew Vaughn at Cal, was hitting .346 getting into Sunday with an .864 OPS at Triple-A Rochester, the highest minor-league affiliate of the Washington Nationals.
Coincidentally, in Baker’s final recreation towards the Cubs, he was managing the Nationals in a 2017 National League Division Series.
“Damn, that didn’t go our way,” he mentioned. “That was a crazy game.”
Baker was fired after the Game 5 loss, and the Cubs haven’t gained a postseason sequence since. He returned after two seasons of unemployment and received the Astros to the promised land, making up for all of the powerful instances.
When Baker thinks again on his Cubs years, a flood of recollections springs to thoughts.
Sammy Sosa’s up-and-down relationship with Cubs followers. The 2003 playoffs and the well-known foul ball in Game 6 of the NL Championship Series. “In Dusty We Trusty.” The feud between the 2004 Cubs and TV announcers Steve Stone and Chip Caray. Managing the 2003 All-Star Game at U.S. Cellular Field. Derrek Lee’s wrist damage that ended their possibilities early in 2006. The heated battles with St. Louis Cardinals supervisor Tony La Russa. And the hate mail he obtained that led to the FBI’s involvement.
“The Cubs was a good stop for me,” Baker mentioned Sunday within the visiting supervisor’s workplace at Guaranteed Rate Field. “It wasn’t all bad. I was building a home and it was good financially. I was just getting out of some tax trouble. After I got fired, I got to see my son graduate from high school and my daughter get married in our backyard. Buried my father.”
When Cubs followers liked Baker in 2003, the yr he helped flip a dropping crew right into a division champ and introduced the franchise its first postseason sequence win because the 1908 championship, he introduced his household to video games at Wrigley Field. By the tip of his four-year contract, his spouse, Melissa, wouldn’t convey Darren to the ballpark.
“They were booing me, and she told me to leave Darren at home because he wanted to fight everybody,” Baker mentioned. “There have been guys working round with indicators to the park, ‘Fire Dusty,’ and booing each time I’d exit to the mound. People despatched me threats, racial and hate mail. The FBI got here to see me, and the story (within the media) was that I used to be making an attempt to get some sympathy. It was loopy.
“But I blame (Tribune Co.) for that final yr as a result of they didn’t spend any cash. (President) Crane Kenney mentioned: ‘Dusty, you understand. We’re not going wherever.’ But I didn’t know then there was an impending sale of the Tribune.
“That’s introduced again recollections of after I was traded from the Braves to the Dodgers. They traded us all earlier than promoting the crew (to Ted Turner). Then I actually understood the enterprise of baseball, which I hadn’t considered till I noticed this Tribune transfer.
“You reduce all of the losses, promote the asset and make most revenue. That’s what they did after I was with the Braves too. Then they offered the Cubs and received Lou (Piniella) and spent tons of cash. It was like: ‘Wait a minute. Damn. OK.’
“It taught me a lot about life.”
Baker and Stone mended fences years in the past, and although Baker mentioned he has misplaced monitor of Sosa, he hopes the previous slugger finds some peace with the Cubs group.
“It’s the strangest thing because Sammy brought so much joy here for years,” he mentioned. “He was what the Cubs had. For a while it was just Sammy.”
The Cubs have been a short however instrumental a part of his lengthy managerial profession. Baker mentioned a wall at his residence in Sacramento, Calif., is devoted completely to Cubs memorabilia. A portray of Billy Williams, Ernie Banks and Lou Brock earlier than Brock was traded to the Cardinals. A photograph of Williams, Ron Santo, Fergie Jenkins and Ryne Sandberg. The scoresheet from Greg Maddux’s three hundredth win.
It didn’t finish the way in which he envisioned. But Baker mentioned the great instances in 2003 and most of ‘04 have been nearly as good because it will get and outweighed the unhealthy instances.
Back in the summertime of 2006, when Baker was on the recent seat and about to lose his job, I requested if his expertise in Chicago had modified him.
“It just makes me stronger and more confident because of the trials that have been here,” he mentioned. “You’re making an attempt to combine and match daily. The powerful half is when someone provides up a homer and also you get chastised, or if a man doesn’t do that or that, you get chastised for him not doing this or that.
“But as a leader, hey, if the team doesn’t get the job done, then, hey, man, it falls on you. Whether it’s right or wrong, fair or unfair, it doesn’t matter.”
Those are phrases any supervisor can relate to.
The Cubs have been part of an extended and winding journey that led to Baker lastly fulfilling his dream in 2022. But there can be no time for wanting again this week when his Astros face the Cubs at Minute Maid Field.
He already made his peace with Chicago.
Hopefully Cubs followers have made their peace with him.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com