Johnnie Baker Jr., at long last, will have his day.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg declared Dusty Baker Day in the city to honor the newly crowned World Series champion, Hall of Famer-in-waiting, and Sacramento favorite son. Details to come, the mayor said.
“We’ll make it official sometime very soon,” Steinberg posted in his Twitter feed Saturday night following the Houston Astros’ 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies in Houston that clinched the title in six games and gave Baker his long-sought first World Series championship as a manager.
“Dusty is a great Sacramentan. So happy for him!!”
At Minute Maid Park in Houston, it was already official, an ecstatic Baker cheering on the team that mobbed him in the Astros dugout after outfielder Kyle Tucker sprinted into foul territory to secure the final out. The Astros won 106 games in the regular season, the best in the American League.
Baker at 73 is the oldest manager to win a World Series title, beating out “Trader” Jack McKeon, who was 72 when his Florida Marlins took the 2003 crown.
He is only the third Black manager to win a World Series, following Los Angeles Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts (2020); and Cito Gaston, whose Toronto Blue Jays went back to back in 1992 and in 1993 (the latter over the same Philadelphia Phillies).
Baker has won 2,093 games in his 25 years as a manager, the most in major league baseball before winning a championship.
“It’s not relief,” Baker told The Washington Post after the series-clinching victory. “It’s just sheer joy and thankfulness.”
It has been a long ride.
The Del Campo High School and American River College alum played alongside Hall of Famer Henry Aaron with the Atlanta Braves; starred in three World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, including his lone title as a player in 1981; and went on to play for the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics before calling an end to a 19-year career.
His final line: 2,039 games played; 1,981 hits, 242 home runs, 1,013 RBIs and a .278 batting average. Plus, zero games on the disabled list.
Baker moved into coaching and a career every bit as star-filled as his nearly 20 years in the outfield.
He was selected three times as National League Manager of the Year, including his rookie year piloting the San Francisco Giants’ 103-win 1993 campaign. That team, one of the franchise’s best ever, finished second to the 104-win Atlanta Braves.
Division crowns followed in 1997 and 2000, before the heartbreak of the 2002 World Series and the Giants’ loss to the then-Anaheim Angels.
Baker has taken five clubs to the postseason, the only manager to accomplish the feat.
There were other near-misses, in Washington with the Nationals; and, last season with these same Astros, both teams tantalizingly close to the title.
Then came Yordan Alvarez’s mammoth 450-foot, 3-run blast in the sixth inning of the deciding Game 6 and the final flyball that landed in Tucker’s glove to end it.
“My son, my town, the world, there’s a bunch of people out there that are happy for us,” Baker told The Washington Post in the Astros’ champagne-soaked clubhouse.
None more than the people who will soon celebrate Dusty Baker Day.
