Dusty Baker
Dusty Baker
Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker, Jr.is an American Major League Baseball manager and former player. He is currently the manager for the Washington Nationals. He enjoyed a 19-year career as a hard-hitting outfielder, primarily with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. He helped the Dodgers to pennants in 1977 and 1978 and to the championship in 1981. He then enjoyed a 20-year career as a manager with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and now Washington Nationals. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth15 June 1949
CityRiverside, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Be more specific of who you are talking about. Yeah, I talked to Walk. We got it straight.
The main guy will get the majority of the playing time. Is that 60 percent? Is that 70 percent? Is that 51 percent? I'll talk to them. Quite frankly, that's a fortunate situation to have three quality guys. It's not a problem; it's a fortunate situation.
He was more aggressive, he was in the strike zone. He worked quickly, which allowed the players to stay alert on defense. His body language and demeanor was a lot better, which he promised me it would be after our discussion. You like to see a young man do what he says, because talk is cheap. He said what he is going to do and he did it.
I talked to him. He's tired of it, too. You could tell he was a little distraught about the whole thing. He wants to pitch. He wants to pitch with nothing wrong.
I was talking to Michael about it -- it's an honor to be chosen to play for your country.
Baseball's not separate from the world. (Racism) is real. Nobody wants to talk about it. You don't hear guys talk in depth too much, especially minority guys, because you get accused of playing the race card.
I talked to him the other day, and he said that's the best he's felt. We want to continue on that same progress and not have an interruption of any kind.
It's the same with pitching. You talk to Greg Maddux and I'm sure he has a game plan, but he also sometimes can feel when a guy is looking inside or if a guy is looking for something else or it depends on which pitch he takes and how he takes it. Some guys get it early, some guys get it late, some guys never get it.
He didn't want to come out of the game. He said he was OK, but they all say they're OK. I don't know how he is, we'll talk to the doctors and go from there.
Everybody talks about small ball, but you have to have the personnel to play small ball.
I'll talk to them all together and come up with something before we leave from here. This is a team thing. It's not an individual thing. That's how I'll treat it, as a team thing.
I have to talk to him about it. It's mostly going to be up to him. You can't force anybody to do anything. But for his sake and his career, you kind of wish he will play somewhere for a while.
I talked to him last night and this is the first time he's been in a playoff situation. I just told him to go enjoy it.
I'm going to talk to them all together. Come up with something before we leave from here. It might go to Sunday, but it probably won't go that far.