Dusty Baker, the Nationals’ 68-year-old manager, is one of the most accomplished skippers in baseball history. He’s 14th on the all-time wins list — only one of the managers ahead of him isn’t in the baseball Hall of Fame — and he might have his best chance to win that elusive first World Series title this season.
He also was an all-star during a 19-year major league career that began 50 years ago, is currently one of MLB’s two African-American managers and served the country as a Marine Corps reservist, giving him a unique perspective on the decision by the Athletics’ Bruce Maxwell to kneel during the national anthem at Oakland Coliseum with his right hand over his heart Saturday and Sunday, silently protesting racial injustice in the United States.
“How I feel is that a person should be allowed to do whatever they want to do, but they have to suffer the consequences for their actions,” Baker said before the Nationals faced the Phillies on Monday. “Had I not been former military or had I been a whole lot younger like those guys, who knows what I would’ve done at the same time?
“The bottom line is there’s a problem. There is a problem. And so we have to adjust and try to figure out how to find a solution to the problem. I’ve seen this problem manifest itself many times over the years. And we’re talking the same problem I had when I was 18, 19 years old. So have we made progress, or have we regressed? So that’s up to us to try to figure it out to try to find a solution for this.”
Maxwell, an African American whose father served in the military, became the first major league player to kneel during the national anthem, over a year after Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, became the first athlete to protest by not standing during the anthem.
“To me, I got more respect for the guys that did it, however they feel, in the beginning than those who joined in later,” Baker said. “Because usually it’s the first guy that has to suffer the repercussions, which is happening in this situation.”
Baker was a Marine reservist from 1968-74 and was inducted to the Marine Corps Sports Hall of Fame in July for his playing and managing careers. He was drafted by the Braves in 1967 and made his major league debut in 1968 at 19 years old. He recalled the racism he endured as a player, which included not getting served at certain restaurants or being allowed to stay where his white teammates stayed.
Fifty years after dealing with that, he has his own 18-year-old son to worry about.
“I tell you we do need to listen to the youth of this country, because I got a young son and sometimes he makes sense,” Baker said. “Sometimes. Sometimes he puts a thought in my brain and I say, ‘Hmm, that’s my son.’ “
