Speaker 1: And now an exclusive interview with David Bassey for Dodger Talker.
Speaker 1: There's certain people in the world that don't know just
Speaker 1: the effect they have on others. Even if you meet
Speaker 1: them for a minute, they make you feel like you've
Speaker 1: known them for a lifetime. And that's certainly the case
Speaker 1: with our next guest, and he is. I mean, I
Speaker 1: could go through his whole baseball resume here, but I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna get it really quick. He's won of nineteen
Speaker 1: people to win a World Series as a player and
Speaker 1: a manager. He was part of the first Quarteta teammates
Speaker 1: to hit thirty home runs. You know, that was with
Speaker 1: the Dodgers in nineteen seventy seven. He was on deck
Speaker 1: when Hank Aaron hit his seven hundred and fifteenth home run.
Speaker 1: He was standing out there in left field for eight
Speaker 1: years at Dodger stating with bubblegum at his feet because
Speaker 1: fans loved him so much they were throwing him bubblegum.
Speaker 1: And how about this, In the day and age where
Speaker 1: it's acceptable to strike out two hundred times, this guy
Speaker 1: not only never struck one hundred times in the season,
Speaker 1: he never struck out ninety times in a season. And Oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, one two and eighty three games, managed
Speaker 1: over four thousand games and was three time manager of
Speaker 1: the Year.
Speaker 2: And he was my favorite Dodger growing up.
Speaker 1: And that is the one and only Johnny b Dusty Baker,
Speaker 1: who's got a brand new book out. It's out there
Speaker 1: now you can buy to Barnes and Noble Amazon. It's
Speaker 1: title Crossroads, a Memoir in Baseball and Life and what
Speaker 1: a life Dusty Baker is sharing with us.
Speaker 2: Dusty, awesome to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: And you mean so much to me, and it's it's
Speaker 1: such a great read to just read your life and
Speaker 1: what made you the person that you are.
Speaker 2: So thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3: Man, no problem, Man, I didn't. I didn't have any idea,
Speaker 3: you know, some of the effects that I would have
Speaker 3: on people, because people have come up to me and
Speaker 3: they say, man, that was that was good for you
Speaker 3: to say that or say this, and I'm going down
Speaker 3: to go feed the homeless after reading what you said,
Speaker 3: or I'm going to donate some money over to the
Speaker 3: church or something. And I was like, man, I didn't
Speaker 3: write it for that purpose. I wrote it, you know,
Speaker 3: to make let people know that I was human and
Speaker 3: that I had been through some of the same things
Speaker 3: that they, you know, had been through, and some of
Speaker 3: the younger people are going to go through what I've
Speaker 3: been through, and you know, maybe it might help them,
Speaker 3: I mean, help them handle things.
Speaker 2: Dusty.
Speaker 1: I was wondering some of the personal things that you
Speaker 1: wrote about the death of your father, going back to
Speaker 1: Africa and seeing the castle where slaves were put in,
Speaker 1: and just the emotions that you shared. Was it difficult
Speaker 1: to rehash some of those old memories and feelings.
Speaker 3: That's a good question, you know, sometime it was. I
Speaker 3: mean it was easy when you're writing about the good times,
Speaker 3: but you know when you have to go back and
Speaker 3: then rekindle and bring back the you know, those emotions
Speaker 3: that you know you had suppressed over so many years,
Speaker 3: and yeah, I mean that was the toughest part of it,
Speaker 3: other than reading the same things over and over and
Speaker 3: over and make sure you got it right. But yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: that was the hardest part you know, of writing this was,
Speaker 3: like I said, you know, going back, because there were
Speaker 3: times I'd like wake up in the middle of the
Speaker 3: night and I'm like, man, did I you know, why
Speaker 3: did I say that? Or did I say that? Right?
Speaker 3: And I said, no reason. I said it because it
Speaker 3: was true. So, like I said, a lot of people
Speaker 3: going through, you know, a lot of things in this world,
Speaker 3: and hopefully, you know, hope I can help them out some.
Speaker 1: I love that you wrote that you can't just ignore
Speaker 1: history because then history will repeat itself. Being a Cali
Speaker 1: kid and being drafted by the Braves and having to
Speaker 1: go into the Deep South and play for the Braves,
Speaker 1: how did it feel to rehash those memories and the
Speaker 1: adversity that you and some of your black teammates had
Speaker 1: to go through, including the Great Hank Aaron.
Speaker 3: Well, you know something, it wasn't all bad, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, some of it wasn't very pleasant.
Speaker 3: Some of them was actually horrible, but real you don't
Speaker 3: person realizes and then they adapt to the environment and
Speaker 3: where you are at that point in time. And so
Speaker 3: you know, there's not a whole bunch I could have
Speaker 3: done about the you know, the places that I couldn't
Speaker 3: go in or whatever. So I just made the most
Speaker 3: of going to mostly the black places or places where
Speaker 3: I was accepted and and I made it fun and
Speaker 3: it helped that I had, you know, a couple of
Speaker 3: players on the team that were older, well, everybody was
Speaker 3: older almost every team I was on. I was called
Speaker 3: a kid from the very very beginning. But to have
Speaker 3: Hank Aaron, Ralph Guard and especially you know Cido Gaston
Speaker 3: who was a little bit older than Ralph and myself,
Speaker 3: you know, to help us do these things, you know,
Speaker 3: to tell us where to go or where not to go,
Speaker 3: or which part of town to go in white or
Speaker 3: black or because sometimes you know, you'd go to this
Speaker 3: part of town and they could tell you weren't from there,
Speaker 3: or you go over and the other part of town
Speaker 3: and they knew definitely that you were not from there.
Speaker 3: And so you know, it helped a lot. To only
Speaker 3: have players on their team that helped you, but also
Speaker 3: guys on other teams, you know, because we'd go to
Speaker 3: like Salisbury, North Carolina. We'd go to you know, people
Speaker 3: go to green Greenville, North uh, South Carolina, and the
Speaker 3: guys on the team would take us out and tell
Speaker 3: us where to go to and and we do the same,
Speaker 3: you know when they came to visit us in our town.
Speaker 1: That's the voice of Johnny b one of the coolest
Speaker 1: dudes you'll ever meet.
Speaker 2: He's got a great new book.
Speaker 1: Out about his incredible life in baseball and Beyond Crossroads
Speaker 1: is the title. It's available right now. And Dusty, how
Speaker 1: much did playing for the Dodgers open up some of
Speaker 1: the doors to some of the incredible heads of state, musicians,
Speaker 1: actors that you had became friends with.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when I played with Atlanta, you know,
Speaker 3: that's when I really met you know, most of the
Speaker 3: heads of states. And you know, I'm I met most
Speaker 3: of the black leaders because Hank Aaron was you know,
Speaker 3: was going for the record, so a lot of people
Speaker 3: wanted Hank around or they were coming around in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: You know, there was Maynard Jackson, There's Andrew Andrew Young,
Speaker 3: there was Jimmy Carter, let me see Ted Abernathy and
Speaker 3: just many many more, you know, and a lot of
Speaker 3: entertainers in the South, especially, you know, Gladys Knight and
Speaker 3: James Brown and all these people were coming around to
Speaker 3: see Hank, and I happened to be there. Then when
Speaker 3: I got to La then you saw a different side
Speaker 3: of entertainment. You know, you saw at that time, you
Speaker 3: saw Hollywood, you saw singers and dancers, and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I had a good life and you know, one of
Speaker 3: the prime stories that I had is when I used
Speaker 3: to go to the barbershop, the same barbershops some of
Speaker 3: the guys like the Gap band, you know, like he
Speaker 3: used to go there and Miles Davis, you know, used
Speaker 3: to go to this barbershop and that was my dad's favorite.
Speaker 3: And I didn't really understand that music when I was young.
Speaker 3: With the older I got, I was like, man, you know,
Speaker 3: now I see why it's attracted his music to my dad.
Speaker 3: And so like at the time, you don't really think
Speaker 3: about that. You know, you don't think about if you're
Speaker 3: a star, because you know, when you're talking to these
Speaker 3: other stars and you realize that they're people just like
Speaker 3: you are, you know, like I came up with some
Speaker 3: good friends out of that, you know, like Ronnie Laws,
Speaker 3: Craig P. Cooper. I mean, these guys I'm still in contact,
Speaker 3: you know with now, and so you realize that they
Speaker 3: need genuine people, just like you need genuine people to
Speaker 3: surround you.
Speaker 1: I mean people now, I mean, these Dodgers are very
Speaker 1: popular in LA, but growing up in LA, my whole life,
Speaker 1: you guys were rock stars. But you're a great person
Speaker 1: to ask this because, like we mentioned, like you've wrote
Speaker 1: about I mean, you've you've met a lot of great people,
Speaker 1: but kept your feet grounded.
Speaker 2: How How did you not allow LA to swallow you up?
Speaker 1: And you still remain focused that baseball was number one
Speaker 1: and if you didn't perform in baseball, nobody would would
Speaker 1: care about this other stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean LA was tough, you know, because it's
Speaker 3: hard not to get swallowed up. I mean there was
Speaker 3: a time when I was becoming on that road to
Speaker 3: get swallowed up. And you know, the thing about it
Speaker 3: is you just have to maintain your your you know,
Speaker 3: beliefs and think about how you were raised and especially
Speaker 3: when you're raised in the church, and you know this
Speaker 3: is all temporary. Because the one thing about LA New
Speaker 3: York Chicago, I mean it's it's temporary, you know, for
Speaker 3: the time that you're there. I mean, you know there's
Speaker 3: people that still remember you to this or that, but
Speaker 3: there's always new stars coming out, like almost every day.
Speaker 3: And it was great for me to play in LA
Speaker 3: because I felt like I was born in my career
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, but I turned in two man in my
Speaker 3: career in LA. And the fact that we won, and
Speaker 3: also that I grew up a Dodger fan you know,
Speaker 3: liking Tommy Davis. He was my hero. That's why I
Speaker 3: wear number twelve, and so, you know, because of Tommy Davis.
Speaker 3: And so, you know, we all need heroes, and you
Speaker 3: hope that your hero is a Greek citizen and then
Speaker 3: leaves you in the right direction.
Speaker 1: Well, my hero is and that's Dusty Baker. Not they
Speaker 1: say you don't want to meet your heroes, but meeting
Speaker 1: Dusty Baker, it's everything that it sounds like. And along
Speaker 1: those same lines, Dusty, I heard so many stories about
Speaker 1: how Tommy Lasorda would bring in you know, Captain int
Speaker 1: Neil Sinatra through your clubhouse, Don Rickles.
Speaker 3: What was that like, Well, hey, that's Tommy. I mean
Speaker 3: Tommy always had stars or these two things. He always
Speaker 3: had stars around, and he always had food around. I mean,
Speaker 3: and and once I became a manager, that's one of
Speaker 3: the ways that I tried to unite my team was
Speaker 3: to have food around. You know, you're bringing in different
Speaker 3: food from different cultures and after a while you're like,
Speaker 3: that's pretty good. Wow, man, I didn't know I was
Speaker 3: like that. So, I mean that was real cool. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, having stars around, I mean, guys would you
Speaker 3: know come around like, uh, I see them now on TV.
Speaker 3: You know, they were little kids then, or Marcus Allen
Speaker 3: would come around and steal my hats out of my
Speaker 3: you know, out of my uh, out of my locker
Speaker 3: and uh, I have a lot of pictures on my
Speaker 3: wall here, you know, like Tony, Orlando and Don and
Speaker 3: I have like some letters that that Tommy got for me.
Speaker 3: I got a Frank Sinatra letter, I got Don Rickles letter,
Speaker 3: I got a Bob Hope letter. I got a Barack
Speaker 3: Obama letter. Uh. And I you know a number of
Speaker 3: these letters, and you know, some of them I met,
Speaker 3: you know, through Tommy and some of them because you know,
Speaker 3: the people in LA they love their team and they
Speaker 3: love to come around the team, and we love to
Speaker 3: have them come around. And so it was a it
Speaker 3: was a very very very good uh, you know, the
Speaker 3: time of my life and and hopefully the other people
Speaker 3: enjoyed as much as we did.
Speaker 1: Now, just knowing some of the guys that you played with,
Speaker 1: is it fair to say that Davey Lopes and Reggie
Speaker 1: Smith were probably two of your best friends on the
Speaker 1: team when you played with the Dodgers or were there.
Speaker 3: More that there was more? I mean, you know those guys.
Speaker 3: I was close to them, I mean big time. Davy
Speaker 3: Davy was my daughter's godfather. But you know, we had
Speaker 3: Lee Lacy, who I was hanging with, and Steve Garvey,
Speaker 3: you know who I was hanging with, and you know,
Speaker 3: just you know, now Downing was there. I mean they
Speaker 3: we had some We had some outstanding UH players, and
Speaker 3: we had some young players, Rudy Law, Steve how Bobby
Speaker 3: Wilks was probably one of my best best friends because
Speaker 3: I would try to pass on to them the things
Speaker 3: that Hank Aaron and Atlanta Cipida passed on to me
Speaker 3: when I was a young player. And so we always
Speaker 3: had some fine young players. You know, you had Canny Molla, Ale,
Speaker 3: Jeffrey Leonard. I mean you look at Brock, you look
Speaker 3: at Marshall, you look at Steve Sachs on Fosia. I
Speaker 3: mean we were turning them out. I mean, I still
Speaker 3: thought the Cucliff and all these guys were young young players,
Speaker 3: including Dave Stewart, and you know, I'm just naming a
Speaker 3: few few players. And we were close as the unit,
Speaker 3: and we took care of the young players, and we
Speaker 3: took care of each.
Speaker 2: Other, no doubt.
Speaker 1: That was a family for sure. Dusty Baker is our guest,
Speaker 1: and Dusty. The Knicks just celebrated their championship with the
Speaker 1: parade first time in fifty three years. The Dodgers, after
Speaker 1: twenty four, had their first parade since eighty eight. What
Speaker 1: do you remember the most about the eighty one parade,
Speaker 1: because I'm sure they were much different than they are now.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that was my first parade, and you know,
Speaker 3: you you remember all the guys on the team. You know,
Speaker 3: you think back and you think about Manny Mota and
Speaker 3: some of these guys at Paedo Guerrero, young player, the
Speaker 3: Vieger had a great, great Rose Ronsei. And so I'm
Speaker 3: just happy that my teammates picked me up because I
Speaker 3: didn't have a very good World Series, but you know,
Speaker 3: they picked me up. And I think about the Knicks
Speaker 3: when when I hurt my hand the day before the
Speaker 3: World Series and Tommy told me that I had to
Speaker 3: play because the team wasn't the same if I wasn't
Speaker 3: on the field. I said, Tommy, I can't even swing.
Speaker 3: But I think back when I think back upon it,
Speaker 3: and you're talking about the Knicks, I think about Willis
Speaker 3: Reed when he couldn't even walk, but he went out
Speaker 3: there to play to support his team. I wasn't nearly
Speaker 3: the player Willis Reed was to his team. But similar
Speaker 3: situation that sometimes take one for the team and then
Speaker 3: sometime the team picks you up, and I feel like
Speaker 3: all my teammates picked me up.
Speaker 2: And everybody loves Dusty Baker.
Speaker 1: You've picked up so many people in your life and
Speaker 1: it's okay if they picked you up once in a while.
Speaker 1: You just celebrated your seventy seventh birthday, Dusty.
Speaker 2: Did you have a big party.
Speaker 3: No, not really. I actually had a book sign and yeah,
Speaker 3: I kind of. We had a book signing party at
Speaker 3: Kevin Johnson kJ. You know, he used to play for
Speaker 3: the Phoenix Suns at his mother's bookstore and it's called
Speaker 3: Underground Books and and there must have been two or
Speaker 3: three hundred people there in this auditorium that he owns
Speaker 3: right downtown in the same neighborhood where he grew up
Speaker 3: in Oak Park, So it's really pretty cool. And afterwards
Speaker 3: we went to his restaurant, you know, we went to
Speaker 3: Dinner Fixes, which they have one down to Staples Center
Speaker 3: as well in La You know, we had a great,
Speaker 3: great meal afterwards and went on home, went to bed.
Speaker 1: I know your life has taking you so many different places, Dusty,
Speaker 1: but I know I speak for La and Dodger fans.
Speaker 2: This will forever be your home.
Speaker 1: I know other cities you brought success and championships to,
Speaker 1: but this is this is for all of us down here,
Speaker 1: Dusty Baker's home.
Speaker 2: Left Field is your home.
Speaker 1: And this is an incredible book and I think makes
Speaker 1: all of us understand how you became the person that
Speaker 1: you are and just how you've been able to touch
Speaker 1: so many lives and it's it's really special.
Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing your life with all of us.
Speaker 3: You know, when I think beck, I started laughing because
Speaker 3: Rick Munday he gave me the name doctor Skull and
Speaker 3: he still calls me Skall to this day.
Speaker 2: Why did he give me that nickname?
Speaker 3: Well, because I used to tell everybody I was going
Speaker 3: to scall the ball. I was gonna scall somebody. I
Speaker 3: guess I was saying it so much. Rick. I didn't
Speaker 3: even know how much I was saying it, but maybe
Speaker 3: I said so much. And that's why Rick.
Speaker 2: Mundy, well, I'm sure he's listening to this.
Speaker 1: And I know Rick Monday loves you, and you Reggie
Speaker 1: Smith and Rick Munday helped get that Infield over the
Speaker 1: top in nineteen seventy seven and all those years after,
Speaker 1: especially in eighty one.
Speaker 2: So you know what you mean to this city, Dusty.
Speaker 3: Thank you, and and I just want to, you know,
Speaker 3: just shout out. I forgot to mention Kenny lab because
Speaker 3: Lanjo was one of them, and Darryl Thomas. We had
Speaker 3: some we had some characters. We had some guys that
Speaker 3: came to play, and like I said, you know, we
Speaker 3: were family, and uh, you know, Tommy had a lot
Speaker 3: to do with as well as our coaches because uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we all cared about each other. And one
Speaker 3: time I was at a banquet and I had Bill Russell,
Speaker 3: you know, big Bill Russell. You know who I thought
Speaker 3: was this mean, menacing guy? I asked him. I said,
Speaker 3: hey man, you know what was the secret to the
Speaker 3: Celtics success? Because you know I didn't like the Celtics.
Speaker 3: I was a Laker fan, Harry West and Jail Goodrich
Speaker 3: and Will Chambera and all it. And so he told
Speaker 3: me that they loved each other. And I never forgot that.
Speaker 3: I mean, it shocked me when I think about on
Speaker 3: the good teams, and I was on especially Dodger teams.
Speaker 3: You know, we loved each other. Sometimes we fought, but
Speaker 3: you know, you fight with your brother, but nobody else
Speaker 3: better touch your brother. And you know that's how we
Speaker 3: were as a family.
Speaker 2: Heard some of those stories. Rick Monday's told me this before.
Speaker 1: The feeling was we can fight amongst each other, but
Speaker 1: if you go after one of our guys, then you
Speaker 1: have a problem.
Speaker 3: That is exactly right. I couldn't have said any better myself.
Speaker 3: All right, man, I'll see you later, See you later, Adios.