Tuesday was bottling day at Baker Family Wines, an occasion not even the coronavirus panademic could interrupt. Fruits or fermentation care little about an economic shutdown, a worldwide pause of activity, or the uncertainty surrounding a baseball season.
“When the grapes are ready to put in the bottle, when the juice is ready to go in the bottle, you have to go do it,” Dusty Baker said Wednesday.
So in a welcome interruption of this monotonous month, Baker ventured to his spacious Sacramento backyard and bottled. He’s growing a garden there, too. Most of his non-bottling mornings contain care for the crops or wine grapes.
His 21-year-old son, Darren, takes batting practice under his father’s watchful eye. Baker tries to work out when he can. He acknowledges “I’ve never watched CNN so much.”
“And I watch cowboy movies almost every night before I go to bed,” the 70-year-old Astros manager added. “It’s kind of like groundhog day every day.”
Two months ago, he seemed invigorated by the challenge before him, shepherding the Astros through the franchise’s most tumultuous time. He openly declared it “my last hurrah,” one final opportunity at the World Series title missing from his Hall of Fame legacy.
Whether he’ll even get the chance to pursue it now seems in serious peril. Baker has a one-year guaranteed contract with an option for 2021. He refuses to agonize about a possible cancellation of the 2020 season but admits longing for baseball’s swift return.
“I’m anxious, and I’m raring to go, but I’m not worried because worrying does no good,” Baker said. “You’re worrying about something that’s really out of all of our control. I’m more prayerful than I am worried. I’m praying that everybody solves this problem and, hopefully before summer’s end, we can get back to normal.”
The pandemic has not sapped all of Baker’s enthusiasm. He remains in constant contact with Houston general manager James Click and owner Jim Crane. Outreach to players is more staggered, Baker said, a tactic he drew from his past experiences.
Tedium is familiar for Baker. He endured work stoppages as a player in 1972, 1976, 1981 and 1985. The 1994 strike arrived when Baker was the second-year manager of the San Francisco Giants. Players, he found, did not appreciate an inundation of constant phone calls, however well meaning they may be.
“I’ve been in the situation they’re in now,” Baker said. “You don’t want somebody up in your face every two or three days, but you check on them, you see how they’re doing, you see how their mental state is, and you see if they’re working out.
“I try to space it out some and stay connected.”
From the first day of baseball’s shutdown, Baker pleaded with players to remain in shape. If baseball does resume, a shortened season is guaranteed. Whether the Astros followed their manager’s example might provide an edge in such a scenario.
“A shortened season goes to who stays in the most shape and who is the most talented. Physical and mental strength doesn’t come into play the same way if you played a whole season,” Baker said. “This team is so talented that you’d have to give them the nod on any situation, but it just depends on what kind of shape we (stay) in.”
During the 59-day strike in 1981, Baker routinely played Wiffle ball with his nephew and swam. When the season resumed, Baker batted a National League-high .341 and posted an .840 OPS.
Thirty-nine years later, stay-at-home orders and social distancing guidelines complicate matters. Expansive home gyms for some players, along with technological advances, somewhat mitigate the concern.
Pitching coach Brent Strom, head athletic trainer Jeremiah Randall and strength and conditioning coach Brendan Verner constructed and emailed plans for Houston’s pitchers.
Strom even sent scouting reports of all four American League West foes. A USA Today report last week suggested they won’t be necessary, revealing one of the league’s many contingency plans to resume the season.
According to the report, teams would return to their spring training sites and eliminate the usual divisions. In that scenario, the Astros’ division includes four National League clubs — the Nationals, Cardinals, Mets and Marlins. Baker declined to elaborate on that plan or the idea of quarantining all 30 teams in Arizona to play the regular season.
“All of these proposals are possibilities in kind of a ‘what if’ situation, but everything is going to depend on the coronavirus,” said Baker, who has been contacted by the league office to give his advice. “Everything is going to depend on the health of the players, health of the fans and health of the world. That’s number one. Everything else after that is secondary. The whole world has to feel comfortable first, I think. To feel like some normalcy before we can resume.”
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