You say the name Dusty Baker in Chicago, and you’re bound to get a reaction...and it’s probably not going to be a good one.
Yet he had the Cubs just five outs away from the World Series, while Lou Piniella has yet to win one postseason game. Under his regime, Wrigley Field changed from a place to soak in the sun and sop up the beer to a place that fans expected the team to win.
He’s the one that brought those expectations, yet he is loathed in this town. In this interview, he answers the question if he felt he was mistreated by the Chicago media, who was the toughest player he ever managed, and if Steve Bartman really was the blame for the Cubs losing in 2003. He also gives us a little insight into the Cincinnati Reds organization.
Darrell Horwitz: Last year was your first with the Cincinnati Reds. How would you access your first year managing them?
Dusty Baker: It was a learning year. I had to learn the organization and I had to learn the players. There were some players that I knew, and some players that I didn’t know much about. You have to learn the scouts, you have to learn the coaches, and you have to learn everybody in the organization. We’re building this organization and we have some fine young players coming up, and we’re trying to acquire some players to fit in and make us better, and fill in the missing pieces.
DH: You mentioned you have some good young players. One of the criticisms when you were with the Cubs was that you didn’t want to play young players. Do you think the progress of the young players you had with Cincinnati last years disputes that statement, and if you have quality young players, you have no problem playing them?
DB: That’s something that I don’t know where it came from because the Cubs aren’t playing young players now. The time I was there, that’s all I did play basically. You see Matt Murton, he’s not there, Ronny Cedeno, he was playing everyday. Theriot was platooning at that time with Freddie Bynum to see who was going to be better to keep. If I’ve got young players with talent, and I feel they’re ready to play in the big leagues, I’m not afraid to play anybody. The players I have now are quality young players like Joey Votto, Cueto, Edison Volquez Jay Bruce, and Edwin Encarnacion. We have other fine young players coming up in our system. You don’t want to rush them because you want them to prosper when they get there. You want them to be successful so you don’t ruin them. If we feel they’re ready to play at the big league level, and we feel they have the mental capacity and aptitude to handle failure, that’s the big thing about being in the big leagues is how do you handle failure, because everybody can handle success.
DH: When you first came to the Cubs in 2003, the team had lost ninety-five games the previous season. You made a statement saying “My name is Dusty, not messiah,” yet you took this team to five outs away from the World Series. How do you think you accomplished such a turnaround that year?
DB: We didn’t really take off until we made the blockbuster trade when we acquired Kenny Lofton, Aramis Ramirez, and Randall Simon. Those three players really put us on the map. Aramis is still there and he is a perennial All-Star. Kenny Lofton was a big-time winner, and I think those three players really made a big difference for us down the stretch because prior to that, we were a .500 team. We were trying to finish .500 because this was a team that had lost ninety-five games, but once you start winning, it becomes contagious, the power of belief flows through your clubhouse and the guys feel a lot better about themselves when you start winning. That year it took eighty-eight victories to win, when most years it going to take from ninety to ninety-five to have a chance to get into the playoffs.
DH: Do you think you changed the mindset of the team where they started to expect to win when you came here?
DB: I expect to win all the time, but it takes personnel, and I don’t care what kind of coach you are, you have to have the horses in order to win. You can have the horses sometimes, but if things don’t work out right or if things aren’t together, you’re still not going to win, but it certainly increases your chances when you have the horses to win.
DH: In 2003, things were going great in the playoffs, and then all of a sudden Steve Bartman touched that ball and it seemed to take the teams’ momentum away. What kind of effect did you think that had?
DB: I can’t really blame Bartman that much. We still had opportunities to win that game. There were a couple of plays that we didn’t make at that time. And we still had Game 7 where we had the lead and we lost it and got it back. Bartman might have been part of it; that was big, that would have been a big second out. It wouldn’t have ended the inning, but it certainly would have helped stop the rally before you had the other guys coming up.
DH: After that play happened, everybody seemed to get upset. Alou was very angry and Prior got upset on the mound. Looking back, do you think maybe you should have gone out to the mound to talk to Prior to settle him down?
DB: Everyone’s looking for clues when you haven’t won for a long time. Most of the time when a manager goes out there, you’re going to take the pitcher out. I do believe Larry Rothschild went out there. Most of the time, the pitching coach goes out there. That’s something in the past. You can’t bring it back. It’s good talk around the table, its good talk on the radio, but let’s go forward.
DH: Do you think you were treated fairly by the media in Chicago?
DB: Probably not, but what’s treated fairly? It’s over, it’s in the past, but there were things done and said that didn’t appear necessary. You’ve got to criticize somebody, and it seemed like I was that guy. When you’re the chosen one for criticism, it’s going to pile on because that’s human nature. People want to blame someone and it usually starts at the top. I learned a lot through that experience. There was some pain and there were some scars, but I’m a lot stronger because of it, and it’s going to help me deal with anything that may come my way in the future.
DH: It seemed the last two years you were here, you didn’t have very good players to work with, yet you received all of the blame for the way the teams performed. Do you think Jim Hendry should have shouldered some of the blame and that he got a pass?
DB: I don’t know if he was allowed to get me good players. I don’t know if Jim was allowed to spend. Everybody’s got a boss, and everybody’s got to serve somebody, but it appears like the last couple of years they opened up the pocketbook to spend, and for whatever reason when I was there the last two years we didn’t. The third year we had a lot of injuries, but that last year here, we had a lot of guys that aren’t even in baseball anymore. They have certainly opened up the pocketbooks the last couple of years to try to win.
DH: Does it bother you that they spent all that money when Lou Piniella came in, and they didn’t do that for you?
DB: Not really. Teams tend to do that. I’ve seen it happen a number of times. I saw it happen to Joe Torre when he left the St. Louis Cardinals. You wish they did, but you can’t waste time trying to figure it out. I definitely gave all I had to Chicago. I wanted to be ‘that guy’ to win, but it didn’t happen and it’s probably one of the few disappointments in my life.
DH: You’ve managed a long time. Who would you say was the toughest player you ever had to manage?
DB: The toughest and the easiest was probably the same person. It’s probably Barry Bonds. He’s a thoroughbred and thoroughbreds are tough, but you enjoy it once the race starts and they start running. Barry was a little tough to figure out in the beginning; things got better in the middle and the end, and he was also the easiest guy to manage because all you had to do was put his name in the lineup and you knew he was going to produce and play. We had some good times and we had some tough times, but Barry Bonds made it a whole lot easier for me to manage just like most superstars do.
DH: How would you compare managing Sammy Sosa to managing Bonds?
DB: They were different. I had Sammy Sosa on the decline. I had Barry Bonds on the incline. It’s always tough when you have a player on the decline because a player still sees himself at the peak of his career, and it’s always tough when your production goes down and when he realizes he might be losing something. I remember talking to Tony LaRussa a long time ago and he said one of the toughest things to do as a manager is to deal with a star that’s falling. It would have been a whole lot easier if I had been there five, six years prior to that when Sammy Sosa was hitting forty, fifty, or sixty homers. I didn’t have any real problems with Sammy. At the end, there was a couple of misunderstandings but those things happen.
DH: If there was anything you could have changed in Chicago while you were there, what would it be?
DB: Probably to have more influence on the organization my last few years there to reload big time. The toughest thing was probably losing Sammy Sosa and Moises Alou at the same time and trying to replace the production. I probably would have been more assertive in helping to reload and adding reinforcements to what we already had.
DH: You mentioned you received a lot of racist mail in Chicago. Do you think the fact that you were Afro-American had anything to do with the way you were treated in Chicago?
DB: Most hate mail is racial mail. Nobody wanted to hear it, and when I did say something about it, I remember one writer said I was making it up to get sympathy or something. I said I didn’t bring it up, I was asked a question. Again, it makes you stronger. I remember when Hank Aaron showed me his and I thought that was the worst thing in the world, and then you get yours and here we go full circle again in life. Most of the world is beautiful, but there’s still some ugliness out there. You have to say, this is how it is, you deal with it, and you try to treat everybody as fairly as possible and you try not to hold grudges.
DH: How much longer do you plan on managing, and what goals do you still want to achieve?
DB: I need a championship or two before I retire. I was talking to George Seifert a couple of years ago in a duck blind, and the late Bill Walsh, and they told me don’t be in a hurry to make a decision on a deadline at the end because it’s going to get there soon enough. When I talked to George, he thought he might have retired a little too soon at the time. It weighs between being away from family, because I was gone seven months last year, and they were probably with me about three or three and half months of that time. The first time I had done that was in Chicago, and now the second time in Cincinnati. It weighs between making a living and how much you enjoy what you’re doing, which is quite a bit. I’ll be sixty this year, and I’m really not sure, but somewhere between now and sixty-five the way I look at it because then my son will be fourteen, and I feel I probably need to be home at that time, or at least part of the time. I’m going to take it a year at a time. I’m enjoying helping build this organization with Walt Jocketty, and I want to see some of the fruits of our work before I retire.
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