Baker returning to manage the AL champion Astros in 2022
Dusty Baker will return as manager of the Houston Astros for a third season after agreeing to a one-year contract with the AL champions.
Baker took over from AJ Hinch, who was suspended by MLB for his role in the team’s sign stealing and then fired. The Astros lost to Tampa Bay in the 2020 AL Championship Series and to Atlanta in this year’s six-game World Series.
“We have an exciting future here — and present,” Baker said Friday. “I just had some unfinished business to take care of, but we’re close. We’re getting better every year.”
The 72-year-old Baker has never won a World Series title as a manager. He has 1,987 regular-season wins as a manager, including 840 with the Giants from 1993-2002.
Baker said he has enjoyed his time in Houston, even adapting to the team’s focus on analytics.
“I was talking to some of our sabermetrics guys, and I said, ‘Hey, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks,’ and they said, ‘Depends on the dog,’” Baker said with a grin. “That was a compliment, I guess.”
ATLANTA CELEBRATES BRAVES >> The Atlanta Braves were cheered by hundreds of thousands of
fans in a two-stage parade on Friday celebrating the team’s first World Series championship since 1995.
Some area schools closed, and students seized the opportunity to attend the event.
“That’s what the fun part of this is,” Braves chairman Terry McGuirk said. “Every block it was just kids and it was all kids. Never, never
did I expect to see that many little guys.”
The parade started in downtown Atlanta, near the Braves’ former home at Turner Field. The route took the busses, floats and pickup trucks past a memorial to late Hall of Famer Hank Aaron at the site of old Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The procession then headed to Peachtree
Street, where fans packed sidewalks several rows deep.
Atlanta police estimated 300,000 to 400,000 fans attended the downtown portion of the parade.
The fan turnout was similarly strong for the final mile of the parade, which ended at the Braves’ current Truist Park in suburban Cobb County. The stadium was filled. Thousands more
fans packed the mixed-entertainment complex outside the stadium.
McGuirk said he thought “there were well more than a million people” overall.
“This city has lost its mind and it’s so wonderful to be a part of it,” McGuirk said.
The Braves clinched the World Series by beating the Houston Astros 7-0 in
Game 6 on Tuesday night.
Braves shortstop Dansby Swanson, a native of Marietta in suburban Atlanta, had a hometown perspective on the fans’ 26-year wait to celebrate another championship.
“This city has been wanting a championship for a long time,” Swanson said. “It’s just so cool they let schools out. To see kids be able to enjoy this moment and be inspired by this moment, it’s second to none.”
Despite temperatures in the mid-40s at the start of the parade, Braves outfielder Joc Pederson wore shorts.
Pederson stayed warm by remaining active. Wearing a pearl necklace and puffing on a cigar, Pederson tossed more pearl necklaces to the fans as if he were in a Mardi Gras parade on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
Pederson also won the World Series last season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. PITCHER MILEY JOINS CUBS >> The Chicago Cubs added a veteran to their rotation, claiming left-hander Wade Miley off waivers from the Cincinnati Reds.
Miley, 35, went 12-7 with a 3.37 ERA in 28 starts for Cincinnati this season. He threw a no-hitter in a 3-0 win at Cleveland on May 7.
Miley has a $10 million club option with a $1 million buyout.