Many blame Baker for over-working Mark Prior, particularly during the 2003 season.
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After the made-for-TV news conference was done, after new Washington Nationals manager Dusty Baker’s name-checks of Bill Walsh, Bill Russell, Nelson Mandela, Stevie Wonder and others, after the team’s owners quickly exited the room, GM Mike Rizzo stood with reporters off to the side and finally offered his version of what happened to the candidacy of Bud Black.
He admittedly assumed he thought he was out of the running when the Nationals – with whom he interviewed twice – didn’t call him to inform him why he didn’t get the job.
Last Wednesday, several outlets, including this one, confirmed that Black had been named the manager and the Nationals would announce the news after the World Series.
“Dusty Baker is highly qualified, has years of managerial experience and is a proven leader”, Manfred wrote.
The Washington Nationals say they’ve hired Dusty Baker as their manager. “We definitely had financial parameters discussed with him and Dusty at the same time”.
Baker has already begun filling out his staff with the Nationals.
In his first remarks on what he calls “a unique situation”, Rizzo says Thursday that “sometimes the negotiating process also tells you a lot about the people that you’re negotiating with”. Baker will soon find that out come spring.
“I had someone tell me Harper and Desmond needed to take over the clubhouse because they had the personalities but they were too deferential to the veteran guys they didn’t feel like it was their place”.
Bob Nightengale, a national baseball writer for USA TODAY Sports, reported on Twitter earlier today, that the Nats gave Maddux a two-year deal that might have made him the highest-paid pitching coach in the majors, though the terms of the deal weren’t made public.
Baker managed the San Francisco Giants for 10 seasons and reached the World Series in 2002.
“He would have pitched all the way through the World Series if he could”. “We’re looking for bigger and better things than we’ve had in D.C”.
Baker’s hiring means that Major League Baseball will avoid having zero black managers for the first time since the start of 1988 season.
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Baker knows the responsibility of that burden. He said, ‘Hey I would like to be on your staff at a few point in time.’ That put a little bug in my ear and I didn’t even know if I was going to ever even have a staff where he’s going to be available. “It’s a sense of pride”. And the reason I didn’t want the job is because Matt Williams had already talked to me about different things, and Matt was one of my prized pupils when I was a batting coach and a manager.
