Dusty Baker buys into the youth movement
A correspondent sent this link to me with the comment, “Dusty wants to ruin some EVEN YOUNGER arms…”. I would say that it’s evidence that Baker is fully on-board with the youth movement:
This weekend, Baker will be the fill-in coach for 9-year-old son Darren’s 10-and-under traveling tournament team, Hard 90 Pastime out of Roseville, Calif., near the Bakers’ Northern California home.
The 59-year-old Baker spent his first season as skipper of the Cincinnati Reds this year working with a roster of youngsters, but this of course will be much different. He finally gets to coach his son — and in the Bay Area, no less. The tournament will be in nearby Sunnyvale.
“The head coach is away for the weekend. I begged my dad to coach the team,” Darren said. “I’m very excited because it was his dream to always coach me.”…
The team is ranked fourth nationally, No. 1 in Northern California and is coming off a title last weekend, according to Darren’s mom, Melissa. Darren is the second baseman and occasional outfielder.
“I am so shocked he agreed to do it. Darren sort of persuaded him,” Melissa Baker said. “The funny thing is that Dusty just can’t get over the goofing around that still goes on with these 9- and 10-year-olds. He wants them to always hustle and stay focused.
Heh. Sounds like a pretty good team, though. Of course, I’m not entirely sure that having national rankings for 10-year-olds is a good thing.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:33 am
I hear the team is great, except they have a really light-hitting CF who always gets thrown out trying to steal. He usually bats 9th, but rumor is Baker is going to hit him leadoff since he’s so fast…..
October 10th, 2008 at 10:43 am
There were three problems with that. CP couldn’t get his birth certificate fixed, the regular cfer is the sponsors son, and most importantly the regular starter hit better.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:43 am
I hear they have a new catcher who might reduce their offense, but he’s dynamite with the pitchers. Rumor has it that Corey might still make the team and be a defensive replacement/pinch runner for some bald kid who wears body armor.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
I wonder if the parents of these kids are aware he is igonart of most things baseball.
October 10th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
Apparently, they were able to get CP on the team. All the league officials had to do was watch him take batting practice, and they could see that he hit like a 9-year-old.
October 10th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
body armor, haha
October 10th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
I hate it when people are igonart!
October 10th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Everything looks spelled correctly on my treo.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
How goofy would it be to be on a 10 and under baseball team and have an MLB manager manage your team.
October 10th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Just thought of another thing. How can Dusty decide who to play? One, they are all the same age, so no favoring veterans. Two, unless this is a crazy league, they don’t have bubblegum cards so he can’t look at previous stats. Dusty’s screwed!
October 10th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Maybe their playing for draft picks from Kindergarten. Season them out in T-Ball for a year.
I sure hope Dusty doesn’t run around their dugout with that toothpick hanging out of his mouth. Could be a bad example.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Those 10-and-unders sure can clog the bases.
October 11th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Dr. Timothy Kremcheck, pediatrician.
October 12th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Parents dont let him work with your kids arm they might need TJ surgery after its over
October 12th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Rumor is Patterson has been admitted to play for the team. Unfortunately, the team’s ranking dropped from 4th to 10th after he signed on and the team is no longer the #1 ranked team in Cali.
October 12th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Commenting on #14, the town I work in plays about 50-60 games for these 9-12 year olds. Since I have been there (6 years), 2 kids have had some sort of arm surgery to repair arms. Little League baseball in some places id getting ridiculous.
October 13th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Maybe Dusty could get Ray Knight to come in talk to his parents about sportsmanship and then handle parents who have any questions.