{"id":321,"date":"2026-06-01T16:07:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=321"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:07:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:07:55","slug":"dusty-baker-plays-the-long-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=321","title":{"rendered":"Dusty Baker Plays the Long Game"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The baseball legend Dusty Baker, who once wanted to be a journalist, has always had a knack for being in the right place at the right time. Age nineteen: Baker spots Jimi Hendrix on the streets of San Francisco, and the two share a joint. In his twenties: stands in the batter\u2019s box as his Atlanta Braves teammate Hank Aaron hits his seven-hundred-and-fifteenth homer. Thirties: takes cover in Candlestick Park when the World Series earthquake strikes. Fifties: manages Barry Bonds when Bonds hits his seventy-third single-season homer. Sixties: manages Max Scherzer when Scherzer throws twenty strikeouts in an outing. Not that Baker merely beheld greatness. In 2022, four decades after winning the World Series as a Dodger outfielder, Baker, at seventy-three, became the oldest manager to win it. The toothpick he chewed that day in the Astros dugout is now in Cooperstown, and Baker may soon follow.<\/p>\n

Read more Love Omen<\/a><\/p>\n

His citation in the National Baseball Hall of Fame would likely mention another accomplishment\u2014co-inventing the high five with Glenn Burke\u2014which Baker plays down in \u201cCrossroads,\u201d his new memoir. \u201cI just reached my hand up and hit his hand,\u201d Baker writes. \u201cI just reacted to Glenn.\u201d Burke, a Dodgers teammate, had provided the setup for the pioneering hand slap, a spontaneous response to a homer that Baker hit in 1977.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt just seemed like the natural thing to do,\u201d Baker added, the other day, during a conversation at his Spanish Revival house, near Sacramento, California. His mustache is graying, but his eyes remain mischievous. He had the Knicks-Cavs series on TV, next to a wall lined with guitars signed by John Lee Hooker, Carlos Santana, B. B. King, Tom Petty, Buddy Guy, and, he said, \u201cElvin Bishop, my fishing partner.\u201d Takeout from Visconti\u2019s Ristorante waited on the counter. Baker sprawled across a leather couch. Basketball is his favorite game to play and watch, and he was rooting for the Knicks\u2014mostly because their coach, Mike Brown, once coached the Sacramento Kings. \u201cI\u2019m more amazed by basketball,\u201d Baker said, comparing it with baseball. \u201cThe best athletes play basketball and football now. But, come on, you telling me Nikola Joki\u0107 couldn\u2019t be a pitcher? Allen Iverson couldn\u2019t play shortstop? It\u2019s, like, Dude!\u201d<\/p>\n

The last time Baker managed a pro club was in 2023, with Houston. But he surmised that he would return to the dugout\u2014\u201cif I could manage half the games for all the salary.\u201d He always managed more by feel than by analytics. \u201cYou spend enough time hanging out around baseball, you feel the game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Baker likes hanging out. He calls it a \u201clost art.\u201d He suggested hanging out in the Sacramento sun. Walking outside, he passed his pointers, Gracie and Rylie, barking in a pen. Nearby was a freshly dug mole hole. \u201cFucker,\u201d Baker said, of the pest. \u201cI gotta put some smoke bombs out here tomorrow.\u201d He motioned toward two stone turtles (\u201csign of long life\u201d) and a pool fed by a waterfall made from rocks delivered to him, he explained, by \u201csome hippies who said the rocks whispered to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more The Antagonist<\/a><\/p>\n

There was also a rose garden dedicated to his father, plum trees, boxes planted with onions, a few rows of Syrah grapes, and seats plucked from five baseball stadiums sitting beside a batting cage used by his son, Darren, a second baseman in the minors. He arrived at a chunk of Sierra gray granite, about four feet tall. Benches surrounded it. \u201cThis is my Dobie Gillis Think Rock,\u201d Baker explained. \u201cDobie was this dude that was a beatnik in this sitcom when I was a kid. That was before the hippies.\u201d In the credits, Dobie posed by Rodin\u2019s \u201cThe Thinker.\u201d \u201cI put it here when I built my house,\u201d Baker said. \u201cIt changes colors with the sun. It changes with the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

He touched the warm rock. \u201cDude, that\u2019s what it\u2019s about,\u201d he said. \u201cEnergy. There are points on earth I\u2019ve found that are points of energy\u2014Mexico, Venezuela, Hawaii, Montana.\u201d In the memoir, Baker notes that he once tried mescaline and hated it. He once tried mushrooms as well (\u201cyou laugh a lot\u201d) and uses weed on occasion, although he said that he\u2019ll never try gummies again. \u201cOne gummy wasn\u2019t doing nothing, so I took another,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Hanging out, as Baker defines it, means that \u201cyou don\u2019t have any time or place. You\u2019re just kind of there, wherever you are.\u201d He lingered with his hand on his think rock. \u201cIt\u2019s like Satchel Paige said, \u2018Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.\u2019\u00a0\u201d Paige, an early mentor to Baker, always called him Daffy. Baker never knew exactly why. He ambled off toward some plum trees, stooping to pull a few weeds. He plucked a plum from a branch and took a bite. \u201cAlmost there,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u2666<\/p>\n

Read more Forward Into Foreignness<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his lifetime, the M.L.B. manager has won multiple World Series, shared a joint with Jimi Hendrix, and co-invented the high five. Will he add Hall of Famer to the mix? Charles Bethea writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dept-of-energy"],"yoast_head":"\nDusty Baker Plays the Long Game - City Relocation News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cityrelocationnews.com\/?p=321\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dusty Baker Plays the Long Game - City Relocation News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his lifetime, the M.L.B. manager has won multiple World Series, shared a joint with Jimi Hendrix, and co-invented the high five. 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