Sporting News via Getty Images “You don’t pass the test of time, managing different generations of players, if you’re not comfortable in your own skin and know who you are. Talk about an old soul, and a lasting one, too.ĭusty Baker (right) of the Atlanta Braves congratulates teammate Hank Aaron (left) after Aaron’s 703rd home run on Aug. It was his job to protect Hank Aaron,” a reminder that it was Baker who was in the on-deck circle when Aaron hit his 715th home run to surpass Babe Ruth’s lifetime mark in April 1974.īaker was just 24 at that historic moment. “You’re talking about someone who came up and batted behind Hank Aaron,” Cito Gaston, a friend of Baker’s since he met his then-18-year-old Atlanta Braves minor league teammate in 1967, said in a phone interview. Dusty knows who he is.”Īdd it all up in one wristband-wearing, toothpick-gnawing package and you have Baker, a lifer who has remained as relevant and in the mix at the highest level of the game since he stepped on a major league field in 1968. And you don’t pass the test of time, managing different generations of players, if you’re not comfortable in your own skin and know who you are. “When you’re dealing with people, whether it be the media, and most importantly, the players, they see through people who are not authentic. “The most important thing is you’ve got to be comfortable in your own skin and know who you are as a person, as a man,” said Roberts, who, aside from Baker, is the only other Black manager currently in Major League Baseball. Roberts sees in Baker a modicum of cool that allows him to transcend generational lines, no matter the situation, era or iteration of the game. “For me, as a man of color who played and is now managing, Dusty is, if it’s the right term, the quintessential role model,” the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Dave Roberts said in a phone interview. The milestone also served as an opportunity for Baker’s baseball brethren to celebrate him. It means extra to my race, and it means extra hopefully for others to get an opportunity I’m not the last.” “It means extra,” Baker told reporters after the game. “Dusty” Baker reached that rarefied plane on Tuesday night when the manager of the Houston Astros saw his team defeat the Seattle Mariners 4-0 at Minute Maid Park, becoming the first Black manager in MLB history to win 2,000 games. No one else in our lifetime this side of Joe Torre has followed up a vaunted playing career with a managerial resume of such excellence that he is now only one of 12 men to lead teams to 2,000 or more major league victories. How does a baseball man remain forever young while managing in four different decades, and at the same time maintaining the qualities of an old soul that were evident from the moment he donned a big league uniform at 19?Īnd how do you carry such attributes while never forgetting whose legacies you guard, while carrying with care the baton handed to you by Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron?