The Matt Thomas Show with Ross - Dusty Baker Joins Matt Thomas At Spring Training

Episode Date: February 21, 2020

Astros Manager Dusty Baker joins Matt to discuss Spring Training and the upcoming 2020 SeasonOur coverage from Spring Training is presented by Karbach Brewing and Discover The Palm Beaches.

Skip is here. This is great. Nice to see you. Have a seat, sir. Thank you. All right. Dusty Baker with us here. Make sure the microphones work as I'm all like over 9 on this one. Let me handle this, Matthew. I know you were in a high profile meeting, so we appreciate you taking 10 minutes of your time. Well, hey, everything's profile. It's a spring training. This is not necessarily a little low-key spring training has it. No, not really. That's okay.

Okay, so let's talk about your life. Yeah. Major League baseball player. You've been through strikes, steroid areas. You had to manage Barry Bonds. Yeah. You got this going on. I mean, you could write a serious book about your life. I know, then you'd have to tell the truth.

We want non-fiction, skip. We don't need fiction. I know you do. Every day we've been here the last three days and we're leaving today. You have been surprised and marveled and impressed with something new. What does that like to be able to meet these young men, get to know them, but go, you know what? I like their approach because you honestly, you walked in with a slate that was like, I've only seen them on television. Right. Well, you know, number one, I like them.

Yeah. And number two, they like each other. And I think that's, I mean, that's huge. I mean, this is a very close-knit, you know, a bunch of guys. Yeah. And, you know, they have one goal is to win. I mean, these guys, I mean, that's all they talk about, you know, getting back to the World Series, winning the World Series, and, you know, that's just right up my alley.

But could you say that for every team you've ever managed? No. I mean, most teams I manage, you know, really did. didn't have the personnel when I first got there. Yeah. You know, other than Washington. You know, I was with the Giants. We were next to the bottom where I went to the Cubs.

You know, I think we were on the bottom. And then Cincinnati, you know, they were close to the bottom. And so, you know, I inherited a real good team in Washington, you know, that had fallen down some. You brought them back up. Yeah. And then, you know, but this team is on top. And, you know, there's certain pressures of, you know, when you're starting on top,

but the thing about it is, I mean, that's a good pressure to have. Yeah. You know, I mean, you know you have good players. I mean, they know that they can play. You know, they know that they're good. You've got a good system I've seen, you know, I've focused probably more since I've been here on some of the minor league kids that are possibly help us at some point in time this year or ensuing years coming.

And so, you know, I had one. the Myron League young man asked me, he says, man, you like being around the young guys. And I says, yeah, because it's easier to teach, you know, young dogs, new tricks than it is old dogs, you know, new tricks. But these guys, the old dogs aren't that old.

Right. And so it's been nice. It's been nice to be back. It's been nice to, you know, come back to West Palm because this is where I started. I started here in 1968. Don't age yourself like that. You aren't to do that.

Hey, I'm proud of it because I'll tell you, man. All the funerals I went to the last couple years while I was off, you know, you got to be thankful for every day that, you know, that you're giving here on this earth. So like I'm proud to be where I am. Yeah. You know, in my life and, you know, proud of my family and just grateful and thankful for everything. Well, we're happy to have you here. AJ and I had a good relationship and I've heard nothing but amazing things from you. And I will say this, and I'm not trying to blow smoke here, but every one of the guys we've had on this week is like, Jared Hughes, in a matter of fact, said, hey, I get to go play for.

a guy like Dusty Baker. I mean, you've made a lot of friends in this business. Tell me what it's like, what it will be like for opening day for you, and what are you like in the middle of the season? I mean, do you have to stay even slower? Have you been able to, because you managed for so long, no one to push the right buttons, no one to really get mad at them and then no one to get them a hug when they necessarily.

Well, you know, a lot of that's up to them. Yeah. You don't get mad just to get mad. But, you know, I mean, you have to be genuinely mad. or try to stay genuinely happy. But, you know, opening day is the same as it was for me in 1971, my very first opening day in Cincinnati. I mean, you know, it's like the start of the, you know,

the Indianapolis 500 because you know that that, you know, when you start that race, you know it's going to be a long race. I mean, you look at the calendar. It looks like September or never get here. Next thing, you know, it's an all-star break. And then you're going down the stretch in September. And you always wonder. what the year is going to be like.

Every year's different. You know, is this going to be a year where nobody gets hurt? You doubt it. This is going to be an easy year. You doubt it. You wonder, you know, how it's going to be, you know, which guys are going to have, you know, outstanding years. Are you going to run away with it? Are you going to have to come back?

You know, every year is different. You know, when I think about Chicago Bulls and I think about, you know, Phil, I was listening to him about, you know, how every year is challenging. and every year's different, but every year is equally, you know, as exciting as the last one or the next one. Well, I heard that you're a Sacramento Kings fan. Is that right? Well, kind of my dad is Sacramento Kings fan. You know, my dad was he died 10 years ago, and I kept his tickets. And, shoot, I've been a season ticket holder since 1985. Now, my son, he really loves the Kings, except when they're playing whatever team LeBron's on.

Oh, no. You've raised that one? Is that what you're doing? Yeah, yeah, I raised that one. Hey, man, let me tell you. I've raised a frontrunner. So has he, by the way. I mean, my son would be watching a football game, right?

And he's pulling for one team. He has all these jerseys. And then he'd come down in the second half, whoever's in the lead. He'd switch teams in the middle of the game and make sure he wins. Dusty, I'm one of the Rockets radio announcers. And I'm raising the same child that you're raising. For real.

I'm telling you, I work for the Rockets. And he's like. Oh, yeah. And he'd love the Rockets. And I went to see him play in Sacramento. Yeah, we've had some success there, actually. You've had quite a bit of success there. I mean, the beard does that step back.

He probably scored an average about 40 points a game over there. It is a normal camp in the fact that you have to figure out your back in the rotation is. That's good. That's normal. Extra outfielder. And now you've got the 26th man. So as much as this other stuff has obviously taken over, you do have some normal managerial decisions to make. Oh, yes, I do.

And, you know, I'm not going to make them by myself. because you don't I don't know all the personnel you know like you know you got to figure out who's a fast starter you know is a guy going to look great in the spring and how's he going to do during the championship year I mean so some of this I have to rely on Strom some of this I have to lie on Joe Espada some of you know I have to lie on Snitger to you know you got to determine is this guy you know can he hit a breaking ball because in spring training you know everybody is throwing basically fast balls. And if they can get their breaking ball over, then most of time you're out. And then you got to determine, I've noticed that, you know, guys that throw a lot of breaking balls in the spring look unhittable. And then once the hitters get their timing, then, and then boom, then they become hitable. But the main thing is we're going to try to go away with the best, you know, 26 players that we have. You know, do we carry an extra pitcher? Do we carry an extra catcher? Do we carry an extra speed guy, a defensive guy off the

bench? This is going to be determined. by, you know, how the, you know, the rest of the team feels physically. And what goes into those types of things, getting to know the players, how much of it is leaning on your other guys, how much of it is personal meetings with the guys, or how much is it I'm just going to trust my eyes? What goes into that next? Well, all the above. I mean, you know, there are a couple of guys that I, you know, I need to talk to

because they appear as low-impact guys, but you don't know what's going on internally. And so, you know, a lot of it, You know, excuse me, we're going to depend on on our stat guys. We're going to depend on the guys that have been here. You know, I like to depend on my catchers because they're, you know, they're the ones catching, you know, these guys. And I say, hey, man, what do you think? What kind of stuff does he have?

You know, Stromy knows all these guys better than anybody. You know, Gary Pettis knows, you know, the defensive abilities and deficiencies. And he also knows, you know, who can run. I mean, I'm looking at the stat sheet on how I get, you know, know, a guy did last year, and this one guy might have stolen a lot of bases in the minor leagues, but does he get jumps and would he have been successful in the big leagues? And there are the guys that haven't run. Like I talked to Bregman, he used to steal bases, but he was having hamstring problems last

year as to why he didn't run. And so I got like, okay, you're going to take care of Bregman's hamstrings, and, you know, you let me know when you feel, you know, when you feel good. I got some intelligence for you. Gary Pettis is going to send everybody every time. Yeah, well, hey, man, I had a guy in San Francisco. We just call him Wave and Windle. We call him Gary Pettus the windmill.

That's the windmill. Well, that's fine with me. Just, just, just, uh, like you're going to, you're going to get Gary. You're going to be safe. Pettis is going to put the hold sign up and you're like, what? I'm going to say, like, oh, no. Oh, yeah, good call. Elizabeth, this is a big one.

Uh, I, I, we're going to, I want to talk to you for hours, but you've got to do, go to the meetings. How did you handle Barry and Jeff Kent in the same clubhouse? Holy smoke. No, but that's okay. I mean, they were both kind of mirror images of each other. And, you know, I used to tell them that they remind me of that movie with Tony Curtis and Sidney Portier when they were both handcuffed together. Yeah.

And then one guy was going to throw one guy over the cliff, but if he threw him over the cliff, he was going to throw himself over the cliff. And so, you know, I didn't mind those guys. I mean, I knew him. I mean, you know, like I know which guy, you know, to leave a long time. which got to talk to him individually and you know neither one like to be embarrassed but both them were great i mean great players i mean if very didn't drive a man jeff kent would drive him in that uh you know like uh you know those the kind of guys especially you know like jeff i mean you know that he has your back and you know what you what you see is what you get he softened up obviously

post group as a younger reporter and i've been around a little bit oh yeah i believe he was an sob i mean i I'm going to be honest with you. He was a tough guy to talk to as an astro, for sure. Yeah, well, I believe that. But, you know, I mean, I talked to him about, I don't know, a couple weeks ago. Did you done all right? Yeah, yeah, he's doing great. And I told him I might go up to Austin to see him on an off day or something.

It's a shorter trip. Well, see, I haven't been to Austin since I played my first game there in 1967 in the minor leagues. Wow. So I'm here, and that's the most improved town, you know, in America. You know, I heard they got great music. Oh, that's okay. I got some friends that are there in the Texas Hill District. Hill Country, yeah, yeah.

Watch the traffic, though. Well, there's a lot of traveling used to. Yeah, that's true. We look forward for you to see the guys over the next 30 days. So when we visit again, hopefully on a semi-regular basis, we'll get a feel of that. Give me your greatest Astrodome moment as a player. My greatest Astrodome moment as a player was I wasn't playing. and I was on the bench at the time my rookie year,

and then they gave Hank Aaron a day off, and I think I got three or four hits, and then they gave Ralph Gar a day off. I got a couple more hits, and then they gave Rico Cardi a day off, and I got, you know, three or four more hits. Man, you did well on those off days. Oh, yeah, and then they traded Rico the next day,

and I started playing every day. after that. But I tell you, my worst moment in Nashville was. No one, Ryan, I was the last hour. Noon Ryan's no hitter. Well, see, did you notice? I didn't ask that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you know something? To this day, I hate to see the first basement stretching to get the ball, and I know they'll be out. And then you've got to run back across the field while they're jumping up and down and dodging traffic coming out of the dugout. I'll tell you, that was one of the worst days I had. We've seen photos of you in the polyester suits back in the day. Oh, I was clean, too.

Yeah. Well, you were. At least I thought I was out of FACCII. We want Astro Retro Day, which means Astrored Fit Day, too. So we want you wearing the suit, the polyester suits. Well, you got to get me afro, though. I better be quiet. I better be quiet.

You guys might just do that. Skip, look at me. I can't even give you that. Hey, enjoy this time. We welcome you to the city of Houston. You got a fan base that's ready to watch some major league baseball and get all this other stuff out of the way. Oh, yeah.

Thanks very much. Everything in time.