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Baker Returns To Dugout With New Perspective

AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar

Cincinnati Reds manager Dusty Baker, right, plays around with Reds' Ken Griffey Jr. before a spring training baseball game against the Houston Astros in Sarasota, Fla., Tuesday, March 11, 2008.

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By JOE HENDERSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: March 12, 2008

Updated: 03/12/2008 12:11 am

TAMPA - If you didn't live through it, you can't imagine how bad it was. That was Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker talking, inside the visiting clubhouse at Legends Field. He had been asked about his previous job as manager of the Chicago Cubs, which ended in 96 losses and a barrage of personal attacks - some of them racial.

It happened two years ago, an endless summer of misery and helplessness for a man who has been National League Manager of the Year three times. As he says, "I wasn't used to that, especially when in your own mind you believe you have the Midas touch. Then when that Midas touch isn't working, you realize how much is out of your control."

He leaned back in his manager's chair, the wishbone "C" symbol of his new team - the Cincinnati Reds - easily visible on his jersey. Baker wears more than just a bright new red uniform top these days. He wears the look of a man who has gone through the valley and come out the other side.

The Reds hired him after finishing 72-90 last season, a summer that Baker spent working in television when he wasn't puttering around the house. Mostly he contemplated what had happened, what went wrong and what would have to go right the next time he got a chance.

"I'm the same guy. You just have a different outlook on things," he said. "There's no way you'll ever let things get out of hand the way you did before. Sometimes you get into a situation where it doesn't look like you can help it. One thing after another kept happening - on-the-field and off-the-field stuff.

"I had never been through it, not like that. While you're in it, boy, whew! It seems like it was never-ending, like 'Groundhog Day.'"

Passion Works Both Ways

The passion of Cubs fans is renowned, and Baker was showered with love when he led them to the National League Championship Series in 2003, his first year in Chicago.

It was a wonderful story that, alas, ran afoul of the fates one game short of the World Series when the name Steve Bartman became a permanent part of the sports lexicon. People didn't blame Baker for that. If you wanted to make a fashion statement in Chicago, you wore a T-shirt that read "In Dusty We Trusty."

But three years later, the Cubs were crippled by injuries and hit the ground in a fireball. That's when Baker learned the legendary passion of Cubs fans can work both ways.

"It got very personal," he said.

Racial?

"Some of it, yeah. That's part of being what it is as a black manager, you know what I'm saying? It got a lot more racial from a few people - a few letters, a few calls, quite a lot more stuff than it has been in a long time. It lets you know it's still here and not gone yet.

"I had a pretty good idea that it was out there when I signed on for this job. It's present anywhere. Maybe I was chosen for this situation. It seems like I've been in and out of something like this my whole life. Sometimes you ask the Lord, 'Why me?' Then you get the answer: Why not me?"

Out Of The Weeds

History is on his side. He won 103 games his first year in San Francisco after the Giants had won only 70 the year before. The Cubs leaped from 67 wins the year before Baker arrived to 88 and a division title his first year.

The situation in Cincinnati looks similar. The Reds have seven consecutive losing seasons and 13 years without a playoff berth.

"The tone is, they'd better come out here and play hard every single day. Dusty wants to win; that's it. We get a team down now - even in spring training - he wants to finish them off," Reds first-base coach Billy Hatcher said.

Imagine the angst in Chicago if Dusty Baker works his magic again. It's not unreasonable to see them stomping out of the weeds in a weak division.

It would be vindication of the highest baseball order. It would be the best answer to those who chose to target the color of a man's skin when their team goes sour. Mostly, though, it would remind everyone that a man's body of work matters more than one bad season.

"I know what I am, I know what I have to do, and I know it's going to be done," he said. "It's wonderful to be back. The organization has been very good, ownership has been good, the whole experience has been very rejuvenating. Recreating yourself is fun."

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