In Washington, he was every bit as infuriatingly old-school as he’s ever been: Consider that his rationale for starting Gio González in this year’s doomed NLDS Game 5 was that González might be mad enough to want “redemption” for starting 2012’s doomed NLDS Game 5. Many Nats fans will be glad to see Dusty go, and I regret to say that I understand it. In Dusty’s first home game with the Nationals, the Marlins came to town with their just-hired batting assistant, and I posted a picture from the nosebleeds: BARRY BONDS V DUSTY BAKER. I’m one of those dreadful people who’ve picked up their adopted home’s team along the way-Washington, in my case. It was Dusty who, in celebration of a seemingly airtight 5–0 lead in the seventh inning of the would-be World Series–sealing Game 6, handed the game ball to starter Russ Ortiz as soon as the pitcher came out of the game-just in time for the Giants to collapse, losing that game, the next night’s, and what should have been the Giants’ first championship in San Francisco. Snow is held up even now as a miracle in San Francisco. It was Dusty whose boy ran straight to home plate in the midst of play in Game 5 of the 2002 World Series, and whose boy’s rescue by a stampeding, just-scored J.T. It was Dusty I watched christen AT&T (then Pac Bell) Park, and it was Dusty who oversaw the most mythic heights of Barry Bonds’s career. I’m a Giants fan since birth, and it was Dusty I watched gnaw on toothpicks along the dugout fence at Candlestick. The well-traveled skipper, who has also spent stretches at the helms of the Giants, Cubs, and Reds, will have to look elsewhere- a multitude of options await him-while Washington will once more begin the hunt for someone able to lead the young team to greater heights.ĭusty was the manager I grew up with. The team declined to renew his contract on Friday, apparently against general manager Mike Rizzo’s wishes. On my way out, I glanced into the manager’s office, and there was Dusty, his feet up on his desk, all alone, hands folded behind his head as he gazed calmly at nothing in particular.Īfter two seasons, his time with the Nationals is now over. After the game, the Nationals showered and dressed quietly in the clubhouse, taking questions from reporters. This one arrived at the hands of the Dodgers the Nationals had a 1–0 lead until they didn’t, and then Clayton Kershaw marched out of the bullpen, and that was that-the end of a 95-win season that began, as so many recent Washington seasons have, with predictions that they’d win it all. In 2016, as it would be almost exactly a year later, the loss came in Game 5 of the NLDS. That game was a loss, of course, as has been the final game of each of the four seasons the Nats have made the playoffs, including the past two under Baker’s watch. My enduring memory of Dusty Baker will be the way I saw him after the last game of the Nationals’ 2016 season.

Dusty baker toothpicks