‘I LIKE ME SOME BUZZ’
Baker, A&M basketball coach continue friendship that began with soul food in Milwaukee
COLLEGE STATION — Buzz Williams once waited for Dusty Baker in a parking lot. In a good, non-threatening way.
Williams, who’s entering his fourth season at Texas A&M, was Marquette’s basketball coach at the time in Milwaukee, while Baker was managing the Cincinnati Reds.
“I just like learning, and I knew he wouldn’t know me,” Williams recalled of the duo’s first meeting that he instigated (to say the least) a little more than a decade ago. “So when the Reds were in town in Milwaukee, I went to a soul food place I had a feeling he would be, and I was in the parking lot waiting to see if he would show up.”
Williams acted as if that was normal behavior, but certainly at least one thing he’s shown in his relatively brief A&M tenure is persistence and keeping his eye on the ball. In this case the ball was Baker, now in his third season managing the Astros in leading them to consecutive World Series.
Sure enough that fateful day in Milwaukee, Baker pulled into the parking lot where the Marquette basketball coach was stalking … err … waiting to make a pitch for friendship. But an asphalt introduction might have been a little awkward so …
“The place is real small and I knew the owners and they loved me for whatever reason, so I went there too often and got a little too heavy,” said Williams, in swerving a bit from the otherwise-compelling storyline. “When I saw (Baker), I got in line in front of him, because I knew there wouldn’t be any seats. I sat down and knew he would have to sit with me at that table.
“I never introduced myself, and I never acted like I knew who he was.”
Williams is a top-notch recruiter, and in this case he had turned to an unconventional means of recruiting a new friend. It worked.
“I like some Buzz,” Baker said with a chuckle of their more than decade-long bond stemming from their meeting in a soul food restaurant.
The consistently inquisitive Williams, 50, seeks mentors from all walks of life, and he had long admired Baker’s approach to leading men, no matter the sport.
“He’s one of my favorite people in the world,” Williams said. “And I don’t know anything about baseball. I only know about baseball what ‘coach’ has taught me.”
Williams’ lack of baseball knowledge includes not knowing managers in the big leagues are referred to as managers.
“He calls me ‘Coach Baker’ all the time,” Baker said with a grin.
The duo’s longtime relationship came up because Williams said he believes in analytics – to a point. Much like one of his mentors about 100 miles away in Minute Maid Park, in first mentioning Baker.
“Dusty Baker … knows about analytics, but he’s not completely sold that analytics tell the whole story,” Williams said.
The brainy Williams, who can be overanalytical, has tried adopting Baker’s approach when it comes to constant scrutinization. Williams, too, can’t be accused of following Baker down South. Williams arrived in College Station in April 2019; Baker was hired as A.J. Hinch’s replacement in Houston in January 2020.
Something similar had occurred at their previous stops: Williams left Marquette for Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va., in 2014, and Baker arrived as the Washington Nationals’ manager about 260 miles away a little more than a year later.
“He sends me all the calendars and (things) at whatever school he’s at,” Baker said of Williams keeping him stocked up on collegiate gear. “And he sends me (a gift) every Christmas.”
When Marquette made the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament in March 2013, Williams asked Baker to speak to his players before the game.
“They were trying to get to the Final Four,” Baker said. “He hasn’t asked me again, since they lost.”
While the Astros are in the World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies, Williams’ Aggies are preparing to open their season at home against Louisiana-Monroe on Nov. 7.
Baker is seeking his first World Series title in 25 years as a manager of the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Reds, Nationals and Astros. Williams is seeking his first Final Four as a coach at the University of New Orleans, Marquette, Virginia Tech and A&M.
“I root for him all the time,” Baker said of his buddy up in Aggieland.
The rooting is mutual in a charming friendship springing from a parking lot in Milwaukee.