Dusty Baker
Dusty Baker
Johnnie B. "Dusty" Baker, Jr.is an American Major League Baseball manager and former player. He is currently the manager for the Washington Nationals. He enjoyed a 19-year career as a hard-hitting outfielder, primarily with the Atlanta Braves and Los Angeles Dodgers. He helped the Dodgers to pennants in 1977 and 1978 and to the championship in 1981. He then enjoyed a 20-year career as a manager with the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and now Washington Nationals. He...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth15 June 1949
CityRiverside, CA
CountryUnited States of America
Pressure is what you put on yourself. You can't do anything about what the Sox did. And you can't do anything about the last year of your contract.
You let him be himself and try not to put any more pressure on him.
Some of it depends on how healthy Todd's legs feel. He is still recuperating from last year. The hard ground down here puts pressure on your legs.
We want to win. I always want to win. It's a big year for all of us, a big year for the organization, a big year for the city, a big year for the staff, me, different guys on the team. There's no more pressure than usual.
I've got a game plan. Some of it depends on how healthy Todd feels, how his legs feel. He's still recuperating from last year at the end of the year. With the hard ground down here, it puts pressure on your legs.
It's something we talked about. Again, the decision is up to the player. There's quite a bit of pressure on these guys, especially the guys from Latin America more than anybody because of the magnitude and importance of baseball in those areas.
I talked to him the other day because he was pressing a little bit already. I told him to just relax. It's the same game he played in Venezuela. We have to eliminate the pressures of the amount of people and TV and radio, simplify things and say, 'Hey, man, it's baseball.
He doesn't fool around out there, does he? He gets the ball and throws it. This guy learned how to put different pressure points on the ball to make the ball move. This guy is the best I've ever seen.
He puts pressure on the opposition. He brings a different dimension to our lineup so we can play small ball and set up the guys behind him to play long ball as well.
We hung a slider and Albert doesn't miss sliders too much. He doesn't miss pitches up in the zone.
We hung a slider and Albert doesn't miss sliders too much, ... He doesn't miss pitches up in the zone.
We certainly don't need to start having this now.
We're going through a real tough stretch now. We've got to find a way against two tough pitchers the next couple of days to try and get out of this.
I've seen some greats leave the game. You never want to see them leave and you'd rather see them leave on their terms and leave on top. It's not over with yet. You don't know if somebody is going to offer Sammy a job here soon or what is going to happen. But Sammy has been one of the great players of the game for a long time and a guy who meant a lot to Chicago and a lot to the game. ... I just hope he gets a job somewhere.