Dusty Baker blames surprising source for retirement

Former Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker blamed a rather surprising source for helping to push him into retirement.

Baker appeared on TNT’s “The Steam Room” podcast with Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley recently and discussed his decision to retire from managing. He said one major factor in his retirement was criticism from “bloggers and tweeters” that he saw as unfair.

“We had a lot of success here, Ernie and Charles, and then the last couple of months here weren’t very pleasant, because we weren’t 10 games ahead,” Baker said, via Matt Young of the Houston Chronicle. “You spoil people. They think you’re supposed to win this every year running away and it’s not like that. Every year’s different. There was a whole bunch of criticism from 30-year-olds and bloggers and tweeters that I’m not doing this and I don’t know that, and I told my wife, ‘You know, I’m kind of tired of this and tired of the scrutiny and if I could go manage and show up at say 6:30 for a 7 o’clock game and leave 30 minutes after the game, don’t do the (pregame and postgame interviews), I could manage for another four or five years.’ You know what I mean? After a while, you just get tired of answering questions.”

The Astros did struggle down the stretch and nearly blew the AL West with some ugly home losses to teams like Kansas City and Oakland. Baker also came under criticism for his handling of one particular player during the regular season.

Baker clearly felt some of the criticism he received in 2023 was unfair, though it was coming from plenty of sources other than “bloggers and tweeters.” Now that he’s retired, though, he can blame whoever he wants.