During an interview with The Sports Junkies on 106.7 The Fan on Tuesday, Nationals Manager Dusty Baker was asked how he’ll rely on pitching coach Mike Maddux to decide when to go to his bullpen this season.
“Just like the president, he makes the ultimate call at the end, but you have a Cabinet for a reason,” Baker said of Maddux. “We talk the whole time and also my bench coach. I’ll say, ‘Hey man, what’s your opinion? And what’s your opinion?’ Boom, boom. Sometimes they’ll give me their opinion, sometimes I’ll ask for it. In the end, I’m the one who’s going to have to answer for it. I can’t say, ‘Well, I took the guy out because the pitching coach said to.’ ”
That led to a question about what aspect of managing Baker considers to be his area of expertise.
“My expertise is baseball and I have total recall in most situations,” Baker said. “I’m a thinker. I plan, and then if it doesn’t work, then you’ve got to go to plan B, you go to plan C. No matter how much you plan, there’s always something that changes in your plans. I know hitting, I know pitching, I know base-running, I was a Gold Glove outfielder, I was a [Silver Slugger] hitting. I’ve been around some of the greatest of all-time, whether they’re pitchers, hitters, or whatever and I try to take as much as I can from different guys in different areas. That’s my thing.”
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After calling Bryce Harper “Royce” several times last week, Baker admitted that remembering his players’s names is not one of his strengths.
“I’m not good at first names,” Baker said. “The one thing you don’t understand is, in baseball, everybody calls each other by their last name basically. You don’t see a guy’s first name on the back of his jersey, and then in the military, I was in the Marines for six years, you address everybody by their last name, so I’m not good at first names. I call my nephews the wrong names sometimes. I know the guy’s name. I don’t know why I called him Royce.”
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Baker said he calls Jayson Werth JW. He calls some players Junior and others Dude. “They know who I’m talking to,” Baker said. “Bryce, he called me Rusty. It’s no big deal.”
Baker also marveled at the physical fitness of his new team.
“I was very, very pleased with the body shapes I saw, the kind of shape these guys are in,” said Baker, who hopes to start working out with his players once the season begins.
Baker explained that during his playing days, the Dodgers were one of the only teams that showed up to spring training in shape. Dodgers players, many of whom lived in Los Angeles year-round, would work out at Dodger Stadium three days a week starting in January. Baker said an added hurdle to staying in shape was the fact that a lot of players held non-baseball jobs during the offseason to make ends meet.
“I sold cameras, then I sold insurance for Atlanta Life,” said Baker, who spent the first eight years of his career in Atlanta. “I sold Fords for Walker Ford in Augusta — Gremlins, Pintos, Thunderbirds.”
Listen to the full interview here.
