Portrait by Michael Zagaris, courtesy of Crown Publishing You grew up in a diverse community in Riverside and moved to Carmichael in 1965 when you were 16. As you write in your memoir, Del Campo High was essentially all white at the time. How did you navigate that shift? A lot happened up here, bu t it was cool, and it taught me how to coexist in the workplace. That was the big lesson I got: You learn how to coexist or you fight all the time. But you’ve got to maintain your dignity and honor as a Black man, which I got from my mom and dad, and where I was from in Riverside. What I loved about living up here is that the seasons will tell you what to do. [Baker competed in baseball, basketball, football, and track and field at Del Campo.] I didn’t even want to play baseball. I was better at other sports. I really loved basketball. I was playing baseball because that’s what you did in the summer—I mean, you shoot some basketball, but basically you don’t play football or basketball. Up here in Sacramento, when it’s cold and rainy is when you’re supposed to be in a gym. One of your biggest crossroads was deciding whether to accept a basketball scholarship to Santa Clara University or sign with the Atlanta Braves right after high school. You chose to go pro, and that led to a falling out with your dad, who wanted you to attend college. You eventually reconciled, but the two of you didn’t speak for three years after you signed. That must’ve been incredibly difficult. I couldn’t imagine not speaking to my son for three years. I speak to my son almost every day. [Darren Baker, a Jesuit High and UC Berkeley graduate, made his Major League Baseball debut in 2024 and is currently an infielder with the Charlotte Knights, the Chicago White Sox’s Triple-A team.] It was a thing where I thought my dad was being mean, but he was actually being loving and caring and trying to protect me. [Baker’s father unsuccessfully sued to have the Braves contract voided, but was able to convince the court to appoint the state of California as trustee to oversee Baker’s finances until he turned 21, by which time the trust had tripled in value.] Back then, men showed love a whole lot differently than how they show love now. They just had actions. My dad didn’t tell me he loved me until I was 35. I didn’t know what to say. I was like, “Hey, man, me too.” I never saw my dad cry. I never heard my dad say a cuss word. Never saw him take a drink. And you know, my dad was firm but fair. Any punishment that I got, I deserved. But when I was 18, I said, “OK, I’m a man. I can do what I want.” You know, that famous, “I’m independent now.” I’ve talked to some other kids that have been in the same boat. What I tell them is, what if my dad had died during that three-year period and I discovered that he was right [about my finances]? I would’ve never forgiven myself. One of the real pleasures of watching you later, especially when you were managing the Giants, was seeing your relationship with your dad and how often he was around.  My dad loved baseball. He had a stiff leg, and that’s why he coached when we were kids. He was everybody’s coach in Riverside and was involved with the Carmichael Little League until he was like 80 years old. [Baker’s father passed away in 2009 at the age of 84.] He also helped run my Dusty Baker baseball school here in Sacramento for about 20 years. My dad loved kids. He loved your kid, my kid. Our house was the house where everybody came. If you came to my mom and dad’s house, we always had a pot of beans or greens or stew or something. Your early years in the minor leagues were mostly spent in the South. You write about the racism you and your Black teammates faced, including not being able to always live where you wanted because some landlords wouldn’t rent to Black players. Can you tell us about that experience?  In one town, we [had to stay in a motel] and lived down with all the pimps and the prostitutes and the drug dealers and the numbers guys [bookies]. But it was like, “OK, I’m going to make the most of this,” and it was pretty cool. Those were our people—they always protected us. This [discrimination] happened even in Vero Beach when I was with the Dodgers. [Baker played for the Los Angeles Dodgers—who held their spring training in Vero Beach, Florida—from 1976 to 1983.] I’d go in to get a nice place on the beach and they’d tell me, “No vacancies.” My [white] teammates Terry Forster and Jerry Royce came in right behind me, and I said, “Hey, man, there ain’t no vacancies.” The next day I saw them and said, “Did you guys get in?” And they were like, “Oh, heck yeah, they got a bunch of vacancies.” You had a terrific playing career, including winning the World Series with the Dodgers and spending years in Atlanta alongside the great Hank Aaron, who also endured terrible racism en route to surpassing Babe Ruth in home runs. He was clearly a mentor to you—and he was a total student of the game of baseball, right? Hank would always tell us that you have to have total recall of every situation. One time he told me [after remembering the opposing outfielder’s moves], “Watch this, man. I’m going to hit a single to left field. The left fielder will come in and drop his head, then stand straight up and look [to see where I am] before he throws the ball. As soon as he drops his head, I’m going to take off, hit first base hard and be safe at second.” And he did just that. I was like, damn. All the greats were the same. Willie Mays, Frank [Robinson], Al Kaline—these guys not only studied the game, they retained the game. And in your post-playing career, you ran five teams: the Giants, Cubs, Reds, Nationals and Astros. And you had some famous heartbreaks, including losing the 2002 World Series to the Angels in seven games when you were managing the Giants. The hard part about writing the book was that with some of it, I wanted to suppress that feeling forever. When you write a book, you make yourself vulnerable. It comes back up. This playoff or that playoff. I’m like, “Goddamn, it’s back again.” It won’t let you sleep for two weeks. It wakes you up in the middle of the night. But then, in your last stop, you did win it all with the Astros in 2022. The team had hired you in 2020 to clean up the mess from their cheating scandal [which included illegally using stadium cameras to steal signs from opposing catchers during games]. That was my last chance to win. There were people, even when we were winning, they were like, “Oh, he’s 73 years old.” And you know something? They wouldn’t have hired me if they weren’t in a dilemma. Most of the time, especially as a minority manager, you’re not going to inherit a good team in the beginning. You’re going to have to build that team. And I told people at the time, this is the best team that I ever inherited. But I knew it was going to be hell—all the nation was mad at the Astros. How did it feel to relive the win while writing the book? Listen, this is one thing I haven’t been able to figure out—why the feelings of the victories are not equal to the feelings of the losses. I swear that’s been eating at me since I was a kid. Mainly it’s because I expect to win, so I just accept the wins, but it’s hard for me to accept the losses. I look back now, and I’m grateful for what I got, but I was close to winning four or five [championships]. And if I had won a few more, I’d still want a few more. READ MORE: The Heart of a Giant – A look at Dusty Baker’s long and accomplished career You’ve been serving as a special advisor to the Giants since 2024. What does that entail? I’m advising when they ask for advice and I do some things in the community. Basically, when Tony [Vitello, the Giants’ first-year manager] calls me, I take his call. And I watch every game. I’m not going to tell him how to run his club. But he’ll call me and ask me some things. And then I go watch the River Cats [the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate] a couple days a month. [Dave] Brundage, the manager, says if I see improvement on a kid, or if I see something that I can help with, whether it’s pitching, hitting, fielding, or whatever it is, just feel free to talk to them. So that’s what I do. You also go to A’s games at Sutter Health Park. From your perspective, what’s it like to attend both in the same ballpark?  You know who I really admire at this stadium? The grounds crew. Because that’s the thing I was most afraid of here. I said, “How are they going to keep the grounds and the grass clear and without all these patches all over them, or paint?” We’ve seen dirt painted green so it looks like grass [at other ballparks]. And that field, dude, the groundskeepers over there—they’ve got to be the best of all time. Do you get to see some of your old players when visiting teams come through to play the A’s? Yeah, I’ve gotten to see some. I saw [former Giants player and current Twins radio broadcaster] Dan Gladden and [Astros players] Jose Altuve and Carlos Correa. Some of the guys want me to bring them down some of my wine. How’s it going with your West Sacramento winery, Baker Family Wines? It’s going pretty good. I’m really glad that we’re not any bigger than we are. I thought about moving to a bigger facility, but now is not the time in the wine business, because the wine business is kind of hurting. I’ve had to put in more time promoting it. But that’s OK. I don’t mind. I’ve always put a whole bunch of time into growing my grapes and helping to bottle and just trying to not only recoup our investment, but recoup Hank’s investment and his best friend Mr. Moorehead’s. They made me make them a partner when we were first getting started. Wait. Hank Aaron partnered in your wine business? That’s why we have the Hammerin’ Hank 755. [The figure represents the number of home runs Aaron hit in his career, a record that stood for over 30 years until Barry Bonds surpassed it in 2007.] Because Hank told me, “The only thing I want is a bold cabernet.” And I was like, “Damn.” I went to Chik [Brenneman, my business partner] and said, “Hank wants a bold cabernet.” That’s pressure right there. You’re also part of the new group trying to help bring Major League Baseball here for good. [With the A’s set to leave for Las Vegas in 2028, local leaders launched an organization called The Sacramento Pitch in May to help convince MLB to award this region an expansion team.] What made you want to join the cause? I’m on the committee because I’ve always thought that Sacramento is a baseball town more than anything. We had great baseball programs, maybe stemming from the Sacramento Solons—which I never got to see play—and the generations of baseball players who played before me. You heard more about them than you did any basketball or football players. I mean, Bob Oliver [who hit the first grand slam in Kansas City Royals history]. He was one of the kingpins here. And in my generation, Leron Lee, Buck Martinez, Larry Bowa, the Brown brothers—Leon and Curtis, Bill McNulty and Lowell Palmer. Then came Jerry Royster, Rowland Office, Dave Revering and R.J. Reynolds. There were dudes who came after that, like Greg Vaughn and Rick Schu. We had at one time, like 25 or 30 guys in the big leagues. And then Derrek Lee and Geoff Jenkins. The list goes on and on. We were proud of being from Sacramento, and per capita, we probably have had more people than anybody else. We produce football players, we’ve produced some basketball players, swimmers and golfers, but really, this is a baseball town.  This interview has been edited for length, flow and clarity.   ...read more read less