A matchup of legendary baseball dinosaurs begins Thursday at Minute Maid Park in Houston when 76-year-old Tony La Russa and 72-year-old Dusty Baker square off in the opener of a four-game series between the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros.
It’s the latest in a long-running miniseries and the first time the two have met since 2011, when La Russa was in his final year with the St. Louis Cardinals and Baker was managing the Cincinnati Reds.
They are the two oldest managers in the game — and among the all-time winningest. La Russa has 2,711 wins to his name, recently moving into a second place past John McGraw, while Baker (1,931) passed Casey Stengel for 12th.
It was Stengel who said while managing the New York Mets at the age of 75: “A lot of people my age are dead at the present time.”
La Russa and Baker are alive and kicking, and both recently returned to the game with ready-to-win teams. Baker took over the Astros in 2020 after manager A.J. Hinch was fired for the infamous cheating scandal. La Russa was hired as White Sox manager last fall after Rick Renteria was fired despite taking the team to the postseason for the first time in 12 years.
Bad Grandpa vs. Cool Uncle: The Next Chapter
The rematch finds our two managers in good positions to get their teams to the World Series.
Baker’s Astros are the best-hitting team in the game and have grudgingly accepted their fate as the 21st century version of the last-century New York Yankees — the team everyone loves to hate. A players’ manager who earned a reputation as the “cool uncle” in the clubhouse, Baker was the perfect anti-hero for an outlaw team many believe should’ve been stripped of its 2017 championship.
La Russa’s Sox are tied with the San Francisco Giants for the best record in baseball in spite of injuries and a slew of made-for-Twitter controversies over La Russa’s decision-making, his old–school thoughts on baseball’s unwritten rules and his confessed ignorance of an actual rule that unnecessarily led to closer Liam Hendriks being used as a ghost runner in a loss.
“Tony and his staff have done a great job of having the focus in the clubhouse on that day’s game,” general manager Rick Hahn said Wednesday at Sox Park.
Hahn added that several players, including José Abreu, Tim Anderson, Lance Lynn, Dallas Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal, have helped maintain that focus to overcome “an injury or even some self-inflicted comments that become a potential distraction.”
La Russa has been accepted by Sox players, though they may shake their heads at a perceived obsession by the media over everything their manager says and does.
“People are always looking for something to talk about,” shortstop Tim Anderson said.
Anderson, whose fun-loving persona was expected by some to clash with La Russa’s style, had become one of his staunchest defenders. But Anderson also points out that Sox players are the ones most responsible for the team’s success.
“I’ve already said we’re the bad kids that don’t listen,” Anderson said laughing. “And we keep rolling. Talk about how good we’re playing, the great things about the players, not just Tony. He ain’t picking up no bat, no ball, no glove. He ain’t doing nothing but filling out the lineup cards …
“Keep writing about us. Fans don’t want to hear about Tony.”
The Forever Beef
La Russa and Baker had a “beef” before the term was coined. They both hate to lose, especially to each other.
La Russa and Baker had a “beef” before the term was coined. They both hate to lose, especially to each other.
Things have settled with time. Before Thursday’s game, La Russa lauded Baker as a good player who became a “really good” manager and spoke of his respect for Baker.
“Dusty and I had a long relationship; the only time there were sparks was when we were in the same division when he was in Cincinnati and Chicago,” La Russa said. “Glad he’s in the Western Division. Like anybody else who you respect, (I’ll be) glad when the series is over.”
“It’s professional,” Baker said of their relationship. “I’ve got a lot of respect for Tony, what he’s done and accomplished in the game. We’ve had a couple of run-ins. You know, he was my last manager, he was my teammate first with the Braves and then he was my last manager as a player. Whatever’s happened in the past, we’ll leave it in the past.”
Their history is so rich it’s hard to believe there isn’t an ESPN 30 for 30 on them in the works. For all intents and purpose, it began back in the 2002 postseason when San Francisco Giants center fielder Kenny Lofton admired a home run too long, then felt he was thrown at by Cardinals pitcher Mike Crudale in his next at-bat.
Benches cleared, but no punches were thrown. It was a typical baseball brouhaha except for the two managers — La Russa and Baker — jawing at each other on the field.
Both were fined $500 by MLB disciplinarian Bob Watson, who said the managers were inflaming the situation instead of acting as peacemakers. La Russa suggested both of their fines be paid by Lofton.
“Both teams know it was instigated by a player who was being foolish,” La Russa said.
Cardinals pitching coach Dave Duncan agreed, calling Lofton “a classless act in more ways than one.”
La Russa said there would be no “carry-over” effect, but Baker suggested it might take a while for him to get over it.
“When you get into a fight with someone, do you forget the next day when you see him every day at work? No,” he said.
Selling Wolf Tickets
The beef resumed the following September in Chicago, when Baker’s first-place Cubs met the Cardinals in a heated four-game showdown at Wrigley Field. When Cubs pitcher Matt Clement was hit by Dan Haren in the escalation of an episode that began with a La Russa remark about Kerry Wood, a profanity-laden shouting match from the dugouts was caught by TV cameras.
Baker later accused La Russa of “selling wolf tickets,” or making empty threats.
“If you’re going to bark, you have to be ready to bite, too,” he said.
La Russa, he added, would not “intimidate” him.
“No one intimidates me but my dad and Bob Gibson,” Baker said. “And this bully I had in elementary school. But I grew bigger than him, and he stopped bullying me.”
The beef took another turn in 2010 when the Reds and Cardinals engaged in an actual brawl where Reds pitcher Johnny Cueto kicked a Cardinals player. Even after La Russa retired, the beef resurfaced in 2012 when La Russa returned for one game — to manage the National League All-Star team. But he also left Cueto and Reds second baseman Brandon Phillips off his NL roster, and Baker accused him of holding a grudge from the 2010 incident.
“The comments Dusty made clearly disappoint me and are attacking my integrity,” La Russa responded. “The All-Star experience is too important to let anything stand in the way of a decision like that. No way am I going to penalize anybody for any kind of past history.”
Back to the Future
That seemed to be the end of things. La Russa moved into front office advisory roles with the Arizona Diamonbacks, Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, and had been inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2014. Baker was fired by the Reds, but moved on to manage the Washington Nationals, where he was fired again in 2017 after winning 95 and 97 games in two seasons.
In an era where managing is seen as a young man’s game, the dinosaurs were extinct. But here we are.
Like an epic TV series that goes on hiatus for a few years before returning, La Russa and Baker are back again — a little older and presumably a bit wiser.
Their bark is not quite as loud, but they still have the bite.
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