Baker’s atypical personality might just be the perfect fit.
Club will rely on an old-school skipper to navigate the strange new normal
Dusty Baker has done this baseball thing a long time.
While he is an unconventional sort — a 71-year-old Renaissance man who owns a winery, has been known to show up at hiphop concerts, is a partner with Robert “Kool” Bell of Kool & The Gang in an energy business and a humanitarian venture in Africa — Baker is an old-school baseball man.
Baseball is unpredictable at play but very much routine in preparation. Baker, who went to his first spring training in 1968, knows the order of things and follows them.
Not in 2020.
This year, in this unprecedented season that has been disrupted by the novel coronavirus, the new Astros manager will have to draw on every old thing he knows to come up with something new.
It is mid-July, and not a single regular-season game has been played. Many of the lessons learned, the rituals that breed success, the muscle memory that gets one through the grind of a long season, can’t be applied.
Morning thoughts aren’t even COVID-free.
“I try to live in the present and learn from the past but also be aware of the future at the same time,” Baker said. “That’s just kind of how I live my life. That’s probably more so now.
“You wake up every morning, and the first thing I do is say my prayers and thank God that I’m able to wake up in the morning. The second thing I do is say a prayer, and hopefully I don’t get any news that somebody on the team has the virus.”
This was going to be an unusual year for Baker and the Astros anyway. He was hired just prior to spring training after former manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow were fired in the wake of an MLB investigation into the Astros’ 2017 signstealing operation.
About the only thing Baker has yet to do in the sport is win a World Series as a manager. He has chased that dream and come up short in 22 seasons, the last in 2017 with the Nationals. While never giving up on the goal, Baker had settled on likely not getting another chance.
The championship-caliber Astros present the rarest opportunity. It isn’t often a 107-win team replaces its manager. In fact, it had never happened.
Hinch is the first manager in baseball history to post 107 or more wins and not return the following season.
Twice, Baker has had teams he led to the playoffs simply let his contract run out and not make a new offer. Three times he exited with 90-win playoff teams.
Baker, who as a player was an All-Star and won Silver Sluggers and a Gold Glove, ranks 15th all-time in wins as a manager with 1,863.
The 2,000-victory plateau became a goal at some point, but when the Nationals let him go, Baker figured that chase was probably lost forever. When Jim Crane called, that chase was back on. And easily attainable if he stayed with the Astros for two seasons.
Of course, that was way back in January. Before the pandemic.
It’s mid-July, and Baker doesn’t have any more wins on his ledger. In fact, he is still getting to know his players.
“Half the players I’ve never seen play, especially some of the young players,” Baker said.
In a normal season, teams would have played almost 100 games at this point. Instead, the Astros are just now ramping up for the start of the regular season, which is less than a week away.
“Usually a week before the season, guys are in baseball shape,” Baker said. “Right now, we’re trying to get ’em ready and get ’em in shape and start the season healthy. That’s what’s different about it.
“Usually right now, you’re not as concerned about being in shape, because they’ve had thousands of swings, they’ve run wind sprints, they’ve taken infield (practice).”
Baker says work on fundamentals in summer camp hasn’t been anywhere near what a team gets during a typical spring training.
“We’ve only had baserunning once,” he said. “You don’t want to have any soft-tissue injuries getting up to speed.
“I want to see who can steal, but you don’t want to pull hammies trying to see who can steal.”
In such a strange season, having a steady hand like Baker in charge should be to the Astros’ advantage. His atypical personality compared with most managers should help him earn players’ trust and respect quicker than most would.
Baker is an accomplished skipper. He is a three-time Manager of the Year, and he finished second in the voting three other times.
With less than a week to go before the regular season begins, the new Astros manager is trying to accomplish something he never has, from a position in which neither he nor anyone else has ever been.
“To say it’s not gonna be challenging, I’d be telling a lie. Because it’s definitely gonna be challenging,” Baker said. “I’m gonna have to do my best job of managing so far and even hope for a little luck, pull a few rabbits out of the hat, and get some surprises.”
Baker is referring to players having a breakthrough year, but as crazy as it sounds, in an unconventional year, someone who has been in the game for more than 50 years might break out as well.