What was Dusty Baker's biggest, most unlikely accomplishment in baseball?
In the early 2020s, Baker was managing the Houston Astros. As you might recall, the Astros were caught in a cheating scandal involving garbage can thrashing that tainted their World Series championship in 2018. The Houston team still isn't exactly warmly received around the baseball world, particularly in New York and Los Angeles.
Baker was hired in 2020 to change the subject. He did that very nicely, softening the Astros' reputation to the point where many fans felt good that he finally won a long-awaited World Series championship in 2022 in Houston. His many friends and acquaintances were quick to point out how happy they felt that Baker could cap his career that way.
And quite a career it was, and quite a life he's had. Dusty gets many of the highlights down on paper in his book, "Crossroads," and he keeps you turning the 400 pages (!) along the way.
How far does Baker go back? Try 1967, when he was drafted out of a California high school at the age of 18. It was a long interesting ride until he finally retired from managing after the 2023 season about 55 years later. Baker missed a few years along the way when he was between managerial jobs (often working in broadcasting), but it was rare to see him out of uniform for more than a half-century.
Baker was drafted by the Atlanta Braves, and had a couple of cups of coffee with that team in 1968 and 1969 before sticking. That's the time that Henry Aaron was his teammate, and Dusty couldn't have asked for a better man for advice on life in the big leagues. Aaron even warned Baker that no matter how good he was in Atlanta, a segment of the population wouldn't accept him. The Old South hadn't gone away by the early 1970s. ]
Baker put up some good numbers with the Braves, but eventually he became a little expensive for them ... so it was off to Los Angeles in a trade. The Dodgers proved a better fit, as the outfielder became an All-Star and even an MVP contender in 1980 (fourth place). He was a big reason why Los Angeles won the World Series in 1981. Baker stayed with the Dodgers through 1983, when he moved on to the Giants and Athletics for the end of his career.
Baker tried his hand at business after retiring as a player, but he couldn't stay away from the game. A coaching job proved difficult to refuse, and it eventually led a position as manager of the San Francisco Giants in 1993. He won 103 games in his first year, and the National League pennant in his last. But the Giants opted for some reason to make a change. It was off to the Cubs for four years, which included the agony of a playoff loss to the Marlins in 2003. From there it was on to Reds for six years and the Nationals for two before he finally arrived in Houston at the age of 71. Think he paid his dues? Yeah, that's fair.
There seemed to be two constants in those years, at least according to the book. One is fishing. Baker seems to have done a lot of it over the years, and at some good spots too. The other is friends. He knows everyone. He had the chance to talk to Barack Obama a couple of times - once in Chicago, and once in the White House. Dusty hung out with everyone from Bill Walton to Miles Davis. He checked in with Bill Walsh and Al Attles for advice on managing. But he's also befriended people who aren't well known; they are merely good people. The acknowledgments in the back consist more or less of four pages of people's names, and he's probably only scratched the surface there.
Baker explains the title at the end of the book too. He said his father always told him, "Son, when you come to a crossroads, take the road to the right." That doesn't refer to direction; it references correctness - as in right and wrong. Dusty even mentions that the book represented something of a crossroads for him, since he had to look back at the decisions he made. Some of them didn't work out well, but no one bats 1.000 in life. There's very little that's negative in the book. Heck, Baker even has good things to say about Barry Bonds. (The steroid era, which he obviously witnessed, goes more or less untouched here.)
Practically everyone in baseball has said how much they like being around Dusty, and this is a chance to experience those feelings from up close. "Crossroads" certainly will be loved Baker's many fans, and enjoyed by others who appreciated him from a distance.
Four stars
Learn more about this book from Amazon.com (As an Amazon.com affiliate, I earn money from qualified purchases.)
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