17 Cubs and White Sox players and prospects are competing in the World Baseball Classic: Here\u2019s what to know<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\nA couple of wins, and the Cactus League might have to wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got an open ticket,\u201d Baker said. \u201cI hope I don\u2019t have to go home too soon. I hope I\u2019m here for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baker turned down a chance to manage in the WBC in 2023, opting instead to keep his focus solely on the\u00a0Houston Astros\u00a0and what at that time was their quest to win back-to-back World Series titles after he managed them to a championship in 2022. The Astros wound up losing Game 7 of the AL Championship Series in 2023, and Baker retired not long afterward.<\/p>\n
He has remained in the game, working with the San Francisco Giants \u2014 a franchise that he both played for and then managed \u2014 as an advisor. And when Nicaragua called about this job, Baker had no reason to pass it up.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a legend in the game,\u201d said Nicaragua infielder Mark Vientos, who plays for the\u00a0New York Mets. \u201cEvery time he speaks, I\u2019m all ears. My eyes are wide open. I grew up watching him. I grew up seeing him coach, seeing highlights of him play. It\u2019s awesome to be around him. It\u2019s awesome to hear the funny stories he\u2019s got and all the wisdom he has. I\u2019m honored to be around him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baker will go back to Arizona, eventually. The Giants have spring training there and his son Darren \u2014 who went viral as a 3-year-old batboy for the Giants, needing to get scooped up at home plate by J.T. Snow during the 2002 World Series \u2014 is in camp in Arizona with the Chicago White Sox.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re around young people, it keeps you young,\u201d said Baker, a three-time manager of the year. \u201cI\u2019ve got a son who\u2019s 27, a couple grandsons. I like being around young people, and I love being in this uniform and playing a game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI \u2014 Dusty Baker is going to be honored as a member of the Cactus League Hall of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,5158,3914,591,85],"class_list":["post-522606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}