Major League Baseball

World Series 2021: It's hard to root against Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker

Updated Oct. 26, 2021 7:02 p.m. ET

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By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

The memories are still fresh for Dusty Baker of the last time, the only time, he went to a World Series.

He can still hear the crack of Barry Bonds’ bat and the shriek greeting from the Anaheim Angels rally monkey. He still remembers the feeling of taking the San Francisco Giants to just a few outs from winning it all and will never forget the sinking feeling as a five-run lead — and a World Series title — slipped away.

It has been a while now, though baseball’s enduring rhythms mean it doesn’t always feel like it. If a reminder were needed that 19 years elapsed between Baker’s last opportunity and the one he is about to get with the Houston Astros, he doesn’t have to look far.

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On the field with him Friday night, as the Astros put away the Boston Red Sox in the American League Championship Series, was his son Darren, a Berkeley grad and Washington Nationals minor leaguer. Darren is 22 and can scarcely recall the time he became the most famous 3-year-old in sports. As a batboy on that 2002 Giants team, Darren was unforgettably and adorably scooped up by J.T. Snow when he strayed toward home plate mid-play in Game 5.

"[Darren has] kept me young and up on the music, the lingo," Dusty Baker told MLB.com. "Sometimes he’ll say, ‘Your pants are too tight' or 'too loose.’ I think I’m good for him, and he’s good for me. It’s a relationship much like I had with my dad. I’m not as strict as my dad was on me, but if you ask him, he’ll probably think I am. Love and discipline."

Some believe Baker needs a World Series ring to book a place in the Hall of Fame, and gosh, wouldn’t you love to see him in Cooperstown and hear the home-spun wisdom he’d surely deliver?

He’s one of the most likable people in baseball, not just because he has a nice family story but also because he has battled adversity, been a true trailblazer, treated people right and become part of the fabric of the game.

That creates a paradox because in every other way, the Astros are the villains of this World Series, just as they are the villains of baseball, both right now and for a good while yet.

Baker was hired for a particular purpose. He came into the campaign with 23 seasons of experience and 1,892 wins, but even triple that number and a fistful of titles wouldn’t have gotten him the gig without his good-natured reputation. That’s what the Astros needed as the aftermath of the 2017 World Series cheating scandal continued to roil.

Let’s not pretend anything other than this: The Astros are hated within the sport, to the point that not only do the neutrals overwhelmingly want the Atlanta Braves to prevail over the next week or so, but they also care about it more than they would if it were any other team.

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This year’s best two regular-season teams, the 107-win Giants and the 106-win Los Angeles Dodgers, are gone, but make no mistake: This is one heck of a Fall Classic, and the plotlines involved grip the emotions and tug with all their might.

"Dusty has had one of the most brilliant careers in baseball history," FOX Sports MLB analyst Ben Verlander told me. "He was a great player on the field, and he’s an all-time great manager. The one thing he doesn’t have is that elusive World Series as a manager.

"[If Houston wins] I think it eases the blow for people rooting against the Astros. [They might] hate the Astros but say, ‘I’m happy for Dusty.' He deserves that."

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The Astros are on an incredible run that was built through a years-long tank job that led to an astonishing stockpile of prospects, many of whom turned into stars. They’ve made it to the League Championship Series five straight years (only the third team to ever do so) and to the World Series in three of those five.

Baker will most likely be around next season, with the organization keen to prolong his run in charge, but shortstop Carlos Correa probably won’t, having been unable to come to an agreement on a new deal. Alex Bregman, Yuli Gurriel and José Altuve still form the core of the lineup, but there is little else left from 2017 — not that it stops opposing fans from booing or the franchise from being the bad guys everywhere but Houston.

It’s a difficult plotline to get your head around. It's a team that it feels wrong to root for managed by a guy it’s darn near impossible to root against. The World Series is a juicy matchup in pure baseball terms, but its narratives make it even more appealing — and Baker is the most compelling of them all.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

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