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WEST SACRAMENTO – Former Giants manager Dusty Baker is 76 years old and still in his prime.
The popular baseball lifer and renaissance man remains a hit wherever he goes. Saturday, he moseyed over to the Giants’ FanFest stop at the team’s Triple-A park in Sacramento, a relatively short drive from his home in Granite Bay, and hung out with adoring fans, signed autographs, posed for pictures, and did a Q&A with broadcaster F.P. Santangelo.
Officially, Baker is a senior adviser to baseball operations. Unofficially, he’s the elder statesman who’s available for any and all queries, including from new manager Tony Vitello, about how to successfully run a baseball team, treat people, and get results.
Baker, whose knowledge and experience is virtually unparalleled, is heading to the Hall of Fame, most likely in the Class of 2027 that could include fellow franchise icons Buster Posey and Bruce Bochy.
For now, he’s gearing up for yet another season. He’ll manage in the World Baseball Classic for Team Nicaragua and afterward visit the Giants’ training camp. He’ll assuredly check in with his son, Darren, an infielder who landed a new minor-league contract with the White Sox
On Saturday afternoon, Baker ventured to his nearby vineyard, Baker Family Wines, but not before meeting with a couple of reporters at Sutter Health Park to discuss the Giants, their new manager, and the biggest name on the free-agent market who has been linked to the club.
On the Giants’ 2026 roster and the sentiment the team didn’t make any big splashes in the offseason:
“Al Campanis told me a long time ago you don’t know what team you have until you go around the league once to see what you need or don’t need. Right now, on paper, it looks good, but it’s paper. Until you go around and see what everybody else has … that’s why you’ve got the trade deadline. ‘OK, we need another left-handed batter, speed, a reliever.’ You’re always looking for a surprise in spring training, some kid who steps up like last year, Christian Koss. He was a surprise. I was looking for a surprise every year, and many times I got it.”
On the challenge of competing against the mighty Dodgers, the reigning champs who added Kyle Tucker and Edwin Diaz:
“Well, this is a tough division. They got a hell of a player in Kyle. I had him [in Houston], and he’s tooled up. But you’ve got to worry about your own house. You can’t worry about anybody else’s house. Most people don’t realize [the Giants’] payroll is pretty high, too. They’ve got four or five players making a lot of money. right? So it’s not like the Giants aren’t spending.”
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On free agent pitcher Framber Valdez (whom Baker also managed in Houston), who hasn’t signed yet:
“I love Framber. It just seems like baseball uses certain guys to set the pay standards for that particular free agent. One thing I know, Framber is in shape and he’s ready, no matter if he has signed or not. This guy works, but can we afford him?”
On Valdez as a fit for the Giants:
“That ain’t my money. You can’t spend another man’s money.”
On the hiring of Vitello out of the University of Tennessee:
“It’s a bold move. That’s the first thing I thought. If that’s what upstairs wants, they’re going to do what they want to do.”
On Vitello’s lack of experience:
“He has experience. To me, he has as much experience or more than some of the new managers who were hired that don’t have any experience. With all the help that’s available now, I think it’s not easy to manage, but I actually think it’s not as complicated a job because so much of it is kind of scripted out. When you think about what would Tony La Russa do or what would Bobby Cox do or what would Jim Leyland do, now things are a little more scripted out.”
On Vitello’s ample and impressive support group including former manager Ron Washington, who’s on the coaching staff:
“Wash is one of my main partners. He’s going to help. We were teammates when he was a rookie and I was in L.A. He’s a great baseball man. That’s going to help the organization, and it’s going to help Tony to run things by him.”
Baker expects Giants manager Tony Vitello to turn to assistant Ron Washington for advice. | Source: Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
On how veterans might respond to Vitello when a season goes sideways:
“To me, you’ve got to give him a chance, an extended chance. Not just a few months or even a year.”
On what advice could be given to Vitello:
“Be yourself. You can’t be anybody but you. They hired you for you.”
On the recent trend to hire managers with little or no experience:
“That’s good, but you’ve still got to incorporate old and new. There’s something that experience offers that youth doesn’t. And there’s some things that youth offers that experience needs. I’ve always believed in the combination. of the two. The other day, I was listening to John Lee Hooker and Santana playing together. Then I was listening to Muddy Waters and the Stones playing together. Like in music, they embrace experience to make them better and come up with a better quality of music. Sometimes I don’t see that [in baseball].”
On the lack of African Americans on the field and in management positions:
“You look on the field, there are very few American-born African Americans. Very few coaches. Very few in the front office. Sometimes on the field, there’s as many umpires as there are players. It’s probably too late to do something about it this year, but we certainly have to do something about it.”
On how the game has changed by filling organizational roles with people who didn’t necessarily play at the highest level:
“Baseball is progressive but also it’s regressed, and I can tell by the calls that I get, especially from minority guys or veteran guys that have been in the game that don’t have jobs. I don’t have the power to hire and fire, but they’re calling me and asking me for advice. Every day. All winter. There are a lot of guys that have left ligaments, bones, elbows, and shoulders on the field. I always thought the field is like a burial ground, an elephant burial ground. Imagine when you dig it up, there’s going to be bones and ligaments and joints and elbows and fingers, and I just wish that some of those guys could get jobs. Years ago, when Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron asked me to be in the network to help get guys, especially minority guys, jobs when they get out of baseball. At that time, most of the jobs were first-base coach or batting coach. Now there’s not much, not even that.”