Steve Webb
HOUSTON, TX — Mr. Johnny B. “Dusty” Baker, Jr., former World Series champ with the 1981 Dodgers, and now an avid fisherman and resident of southeast Texas, has achieved a long-elusive career milestone. I’m not exactly sure what the milestone was, because my TV was off at the time. Something to do with baseball, I think. Nevertheless, while the goings-on this past few weeks have been hard to stomach for Dodger fans, the lone bright spot in the the whole thing has been the deserved praise being laid at Dusty’s feet.
Like Gil Hodges before him, Dusty was a Dodger headed for the “Hall of the Really Good” before he turned to managing in his career. After playing seven plus seasons with the Atlanta Braves in his teens and early twenties, he joined the Dodgers in 1976 in his age 27 season, right in the prime of playing career. At, right in time for the Dodger’s run of success in the last 70s and early 80s. Three times in the next six seasons, the Dodgers would reach the World Series. Three times they would face the hated New York Yankees. They lost the first two, but in the strike shortened 1981 season, they finally made it to the promised land, winning the Dodgers first World Series since the days of Koufax and Drysdale.
And Dusty was a big part of it all. In his seven seasons with the club, Dusty was a solid ballplayer, hitting .281 in those years with .780 OPS. And while the famous infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell, and Cey got a lot of press, Baker was a part of a solid outfield (these were the days of Reggie Smith and Derrel Thomas as well).
But also like Hodges, it will be his accomplishments as a manager that might also land him in Cooperstown. He managed the Giants for nearly a decade (we will forgive him for that). Then the Cubs for three seasons. Then, the Cincinnati Reds. Then, finally the Washington Nationals. After being fired from the Nats for perceived underperformance in the postseason, Baker receded from the public eye for a while. But something happened that we don’t need to get into right now and he was back on center stage. And now, he’s got a ring as a manager to go along with the one he earned as a player.
Baker spoke often of what his father, the late Johnnie Baker Sr., told him after the Giants’ crushing loss to the Angels in 2002: “Man, after the way (you) lost that one, I don’t know if you’ll ever win another one.” Baker is quoted in the Athletic saying on Saturday morning.
“I was, like, I didn’t really want to get to Game 6 again, but I was like, well, maybe this is how it’s supposed to be,” Baker said. “My dad didn’t mean anything negative … back in the old school, there was such thing as negative motivation.
“In the new school, negative motivation doesn’t work. But my dad was the kind of dude that I’d score four or five touchdowns, score 30 points, and I would ask him, ‘How did I do tonight in basketball?’ And my dad would tell me, ‘Pretty good.’ And I would be like, ‘Damn, Dad, I think I did great, you know? But ‘pretty good’ was his way of keeping me motivated.”
In the end, now with the elusive goal achieved, Baker spoke of gratitude. “I’ve had some ups and downs, some disappointments, you know?” Baker said late Saturday night. “But those disappointments make you stronger or they break you. So this has kind of been the story of my life where people tell me what you can’t do. Even now, I won a bunch of games, my teams won a bunch of games, and all I hear about is what you don’t do, you don’t like this or you don’t like young players, you can’t handle pitchers, you can’t, and I’m like, well, damn, what did I do?”
“After a while I quit listening to folks telling me what I can’t do,” Baker continued. “All that does is motivate me more to do it because I know there’s a bunch of people in this country that are told the same thing, and it’s broken a lot of people. But my faith in God and my mom and dad always talking to me made me persevere even more.”
And now, that perseverance has finally paid off. Here’s to you Dusty. Congratulations on your achievement, whatever it was.
Now, do yourself a favor and go catch some fish.
