Dusty Baker has retired

Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker is retiring from managing, it was announced yesterday. Baker has indicated that he would like to stay in the game in an advisory capacity, whether with the Astros or another team, but 2023 was his last season as a manager.

Baker has spent almost all of his adult life in a baseball uniform. He first broke into the big leagues in 1968 as a 19 year old with the Atlanta Braves, and first became a regular in 1972. He was traded by the Braves to the Los Angeles Dodgers after the 1975 season, and is probably best known as a player for his role as the starting left field for the great Dodgers teams of the late-70s and early-80s. In the later years of his career, he played for the San Francisco Giants for a year and the Oakland A’s for two seasons, retiring as a player after the 1986 season.

While Baker had a very good playing career, he will be best remembered as a manager, spending ten years managing the San Francisco Giants, four years managing the Chicago Cubs, followed by six years with the Cincinnati Reds, two years with the Washington Nationals and four years with the Houston Astros. The one good thing that came out of the Astros winning it all last year was that Dusty Baker finally got a ring as a manager to go with the one he earned as a player with the Dodgers.