Baker’s journey too grand

As he nears 2,000 wins, players reflect on Astros skipper’s storied career

Dusty Baker has forgotten more about baseball than many people know, but he still remembers his first win as an MLB manager.

It was April 6, 1993, opening day for Baker’s San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. A night game at Busch Stadium. Righthander John Burkett pitched for the Giants in a 2-1 win, the first of a 103win season for which Baker won National League Manager of the Year.

Decades later, Baker breathes rarified air as the only manager to win a division title with five different teams, most recently with the Astros in 2021. After Saturday’s 2-1 loss to the Blue Jays in Toronto, he remains two away from 2,000 regular-season wins, one of just 12 MLB managers in history to reach that milestone.

“You don’t have time to gloat or even look back on it,” Baker said. “You gotta live in the present. You have plenty of time to live in the past when your career’s over with and you think about all the great players that allowed you to be in this position. That’s what I think about. I’ve had some great, great players and great guys. They worked hard, I worked hard. We worked together.”

Baker is not one to dwell on these things before they happen — “I’m wishing that we hurry up and get back to business” — but he can be sentimental. When he managed the Cincinnati Reds, home clubhouse manager Rick Stowe

delivered the lineup card each day along with the names of other managers Baker had surpassed in wins. Baker still has the lineup cards, piled in a desk drawer somewhere.

The Chronicle spoke to Baker and many of his former and current players about Baker’s storied managerial career and the road that led him to this point.

San Francisco Giants, 1993-2002

Baker started in San Francisco as a first base coach in 1988 and spent the next four

years as a hitting instructor. In 1993, after firing Roger Craig, the Giants promoted Baker to manager. The team had just signed Barry Bonds in the offseason. Baker surmised that his transition to being a firsttime manager was easier because it occurred within the Giants organization, where he had already built relationships with many players.

Baker: “I’ve always said being a coach is like being an uncle and being a manager is like being a dad. When you’re a coach, it’s like how you can tell your uncle things you wouldn’t tell your dad. The

dad already knows what’s going on, but you don’t share with him.”

First baseman Will Clark: “He and I, because we’d had such a great relationship as hitting instructor and player, that when he became manager, let’s just say I was kind of his on-the-field general. He would delegate down to his generals: Barry (Bonds) in the outfield, me in the infield. If he needed something else done, Matt Williams or Robby Thomspon, guys who’d had eight or nine years in the big leagues. He used them to take care of the clubhouse, make sure guys were all on the same page.”

Pitcher Joe Nathan: “My first call-up was in ’99, so I had the pleasure of him being my first manager up there with San Francisco. … There was a time that season we were heading to play the Dbacks, a huge series between the first and second-place clubs (in the division) later in the year. Dusty said on the plane, ‘I want everybody in the lobby when we get there.’ I was expecting us to go down, have a meeting, talk about the importance of the series, yada yada. When we get down there it was really just to go hang out, go to the bar and chill out together. He wanted to relax us and get our minds away from what was in front of us.”

Clark: “We had a rookie that had a prank played on him. We had some policemen come in and fake arrest him, but at the time they were being really serious and Dusty was in on it. And Dusty was like, ‘Dude, you’re going to jail, sorry too bad’ and keeping a straight face. This guy was crying, the whole works, and they finally had to tell him, ‘No, you’re being pranked.’ Dusty went along with it.”

Baker won his 500th managerial game in Philadelphia on June 1, 1999, when the Giants beat the Phillies 6-5 in 12 innings. San Francisco pitcher Robbie Nen presented him with the game ball to mark the occasion. Two weeks later, while the Giants were playing in Colorado, the players gave Baker a personalized gift.

Baker: “I had a Cartier a long time ago when I was with the Dodgers, and then my

Godofredo A. Vásquez / Staff photographer Dusty Baker won a World Series title as a player with the Los Angeles Dodgers before becoming a coach, hitting instructor and finally a manager in 1993.

Karen Warren / Staff photographer Baker says he likens a coach to being an uncle and a manager to being a father. “When you’re a coach, it’s like how you can tell your uncle things you wouldn’t tell your dad,” he said.