HOUSTON Dusty Baker, then manager of the San Francisco Giants, had just left the stadium after a crushing loss to the Anaheim Angels in Game 7 of the 2002 World Series when he met up with his father.
HOUSTON (AP) — Dusty Baker, then manager of the San Francisco Giants, had just left the stadium after a crushing loss to the Anaheim Angels in Game 7 of the
Sactown Magazine
The Heart of a Giant
When it comes to baseball, Dusty Baker plays to win. He s also living proof that the most important stats aren t measured in hits and runs, but in heart and soul.
April 28, 2021
Without a second opinion, Dusty Baker might never have been the star athlete who morphed into one of baseball’s winningest managers. As a teenager in 1966, a benign heart murmur was misdiagnosed as a significantly more serious condition. He was told to quit all strenuous activities particularly football, which he loved. “They told me I’d never play sports again. I was 16,” Baker says, sitting in the empty tasting room closed due to the pandemic of his West Sacramento winery, Baker Family Wines, in early January. His family had just moved to Carmichael from Riverside after his dad landed a job at McClellan Air Force Base, and he’d already made an impression as a touchdown maker at Del Campo High School in Fair Oaks. But his father, Johnnie B. Baker Sr. (