Dusty Baker

A heavy-hitter in the dugout and on the baseball diamond during his playing career, Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker has been a cornerstone presence of Major League Baseball across seven decades and is among the league’s most storied leaders as both a manager and a player. In 2022, Baker led the Astros to a World Series victory — becoming part of an elite club of people who have won the World Series as both a player and a manager, and cementing his legacy as a consistent winner and team builder who excels when the game is on the line. With a career total of more than 2,093 managerial wins, Baker is currently the seventh winningest manager in the history of MLB.

Baker brings a true champion’s lessons on life, leadership, high performance, and teamwork from the playing field to any event. Entertaining the audience with never-before-heard anecdotes from his 50-plus years in baseball, Baker shares insights and action steps for how organizations and individuals can create gameplans that play to their strengths and put them in position to accomplish extraordinary goals.

Baker’s 19-year playing career in the majors began in 1968, and he soon developed a reputation for making the big play on both sides of the field, while also coming up big in clutch moments. As a hard-hitting outfielder, he played the majority of his career with the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, and played on the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics in his later career. As a true team player, Baker is credited with the invention of the “high five” in 1977. He was twice selected to the National League All-Star team, appeared in four National League Championship Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and was named the NLCS MVP in 1981 when the Dodgers beat the Phillies to advance to the World Series, which they won against the New York Yankees. Baker is a two-time all-star, a Gold Glove Award winner, two-time Silver Slugger Award winner, and is among the all-time leaders with 25 walk-off hits in his career.

Following his incredible playing career, Baker made the transition to management, where he has made history on several occasions and been among the most successful managers for more than three decades. Leading the Astros to a World Series victory in 2022, he became the oldest manager to appear in and win the World Series, and the first African American manager with 50 postseason victories. Baker is also the first African American manager with 2,000 victories and the first manager in MLB history to lead five different teams to division titles. Prior to the Astros, he managed the Washington Nationals, Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs, and San Francisco Giants.

As one of baseball’s most influential figures, Baker was named to the All-Time Los Angeles Dodgers team as a player and named to the All-Time San Francisco Giants team as a manager. In between managerial roles, he became a familiar presence on MLB programming, serving as an analyst for TBS and ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and “Baseball Tonight.” In 2016, The MLB celebrated Baker’s 50 years in the majors with the documentary “Dusty: A Baseball Journey.”

Outside of baseball, Baker is very active in his community and supportive of charitable organizations and helping the homeless. Dusty is a member of the US Marine Corps Hall of Fame. Additionally, he shows tremendous passion for the medical field as he is a cancer survivor, himself. He is the owner of Baker Family Wines and the Baker Energy Team, and the founder of the Dusty Baker International Academy of Baseball, which served the West Coast area for close to four decades.