A Fine Whine

The Astros must’ve thought they deserved more punishment than they received from MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred for their sign-stealing activities.  How else to explain the team hiring Dusty Baker?

What team that’s done its due diligence would want Baker running things from the dugout?  As manager of the Giants, Baker blew a three-games-to-two lead in the 2002 World Series against the Angels.  In what could have been—and dare I say should have been—the game-six clincher, San Francisco had a 5-0 lead going into the bottom of the seventh inning at Anaheim.  Oh, that Dusty.

That World Series loss finished Baker in San Francisco.  Next up was managing gig number two—not to be confused with Houston, number five—with the Cubs.  You remember the 2003 Cubs, don’t you?  That was the team up 3-1 in the NLCS against the Marlins.  A game-five loss in Miami still left Bake and company two chances to close things out at Wrigley Field.

Ah, yes, game six, the Bartman Game.  The Cubs were up 3-0 going into the top of the eighth inning when God or fate or both led a fan to reach for a ball that could have turned into an out but didn’t, and the Marlins ended up scoring eight times to win.  What’s that old saying?  Oh, right, the tough get going when the going gets tough.  The Cubs had themselves a 5-3 lead early in game seven before Florida got tough and pulled out a 9-6 win for a trip to the World Series. On his career, manager Baker is 23-32 in the postseason, which is even less impressive when you consider he’s 16-13 for his efforts in 2002 and ’03.

Baker also has a way with words, as when he offered how “you’ve got a better chance of getting some speed with Latin and African Americans.  I’m not being racist.  That’s just how it is.”  In the wake of domestic abuse allegations against closer Aroldis Chapman (this during managerial stop number 3, in Cincinnati, Baker told reporters, “Sometimes abusers don’t always have pants on.”  Oddly enough, Baker doesn’t have anything to say, at least anything bad, about Barry Bonds, whom he managed in San Francisco.

As for managing the Cubs, the fans and ownership turned on him.  In an August 2018 interview with The Athletic, Baker said of his time in Chicago, “That’s when the Tribune Company [then the team owners] was in trouble.  I figured [that] out later, and they didn’t give us any help the last two years.”  That would be 2005-06, well before the collapse of the Tribune Company, which started after Sam Zell bought a controlling interest in 2008.  When a Dusty Baker team goes 66-96 like the 2006 Cubs did, somebody has to be at fault.  Just so long as it isn’t Dusty Baker.      

Anyone who would call out Baker for what he says is advised to think twice because Baker is quick to see conspiracies against him.  He said as much during a 2018 interview with the Associated Press.  Baker talked about a world, one seemingly populated by one and only one victim, who happens to have the name Dusty Baker.  For that poor fellow, “there’s always been discrimination, race discrimination, but it seems like in this new world there’s [also] age and salary discrimination, which go hand in hand.”

If you want to talk conspiracies (or blacklists), consider the one that keeps ex-White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen from getting another job.  Guillen goes from wining a World Series in 2005 to becoming persona non grata by 2012.  Meanwhile, Dusty Baker goes on and on and on, to managing-job number 5.