HOUSTON — Dusty Baker was mobbed in the dugout and after a quarter-century as a Major League manager, is now a World Series champion.
The Houston Astros, cementing their legacy as a dynasty, silenced the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-1, Saturday night to capture the 2022 World Series championship in six games, winning the last three games for their second title in six seasons.
The sellout crowd of 42,958 erupted. Melissa Baker, Dusty’s wife, cried in joy. And Darren Baker, their son who died 20 years ago when Baker’s San Francisco Giants lost in the 2002 World Series, celebrated.
Yordan Alvarez, who hit a monstrous, 450-foot, 3-run homer in the sixth inning – his first in 42 at-bats – was the hero.
Rookie shortstop Jeremy Peña was named MVP of the World Series after winning ALCS MVP.
But this championship perhaps meant more to one man than any player who showed up in the box score.
Johnnie B. Baker Jr.
The future Hall of Famer.
Baker, who had won more games (2,093) than any manager without a World Series title, has his ring.
“I’m actually happy it took this long because I would have been gone a long time ago,” Baker joked after the win.
The Hall of Fame already has artifacts of Baker in their museum: The 1977 National League Championship Series trophy by Baseball Magazine; an autographed baseball from the 2003 All-Star Game that he managed; a Dodgers road jersey from his playing days; and a cap from the 2021 season in which he led his record fifth team to a postseason berth.
WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS: Astros finish off Phillies in Game 6
NEVER MISS A MOMENT: Follow our sports newsletter for daily updates
And, now, Hall of Fame officials said, they will be clamoring for anything and everything from Baker.
Baker becomes the oldest manager to ever win the World Series and only the third Black manager to achieve the feat.
“There was pressure from a lot of people who are pulling for me,” Baker said, “especially people of color. And that part I do feel. I hear it every day. I see it when I’m walking down the street when I see a policeman, a bellman, or anybody of color, but especially of African-American color.
“I feel that I’ve been chosen for this.”
The irony of Baker’s World Series championship is that it was against the same team who considered him for their vacancy in October 2019. They interviewed Baker, Buck Showalter and Joe Girardi. They hired Girardi and fired him this June.
Rob Thomson became the interim manager and led the Phillies to their first postseason appearance since 2011, but it was Thomson who will be the second-guessed manager all winter.
Phillies starter Zack Wheeler, who had been given two extra days of rest because of arm fatigue, was mowing down the Astros the first five innings. He gave up just two singles when he opened the sixth inning by hitting Martin Maldonado with a pitch. The Phillies challenged the call with Maldonado not trying to get out of the way, but the call was confirmed. He induced a groundout by Jose Altuve, who went the entire postseason without a home run or RBI. Pena, red-hot, got his second hit of the game with a single to center.
Thomson pulled Wheeler and went with left-handed reliever Jose Alvarado.
It took four pitches for Alvarez to make the decision look bad.
He sent Jesus Alvarado’s 99-mph fastball 450 feet over the center-field batter’s eye. The Astros went up, 3-1, and turned Minute Maid Park into a party.
The Phillies will lament this winter, too, how everything could have been potentially different when Edmundo Sosa, their No. 9 hitter, came within a foot of giving the Phillies a 3-0 lead in the second inning.
He sent Valdez’s 79-mph curveball 365 feet into the night, just left of the Crawford Boxes.
He needed a little bit more.
Alvarez caught the ball up against the fence for the final out of the inning, as the sellout crowd exhaled and Alec Bohm, on second base screamed in disbelief.
It was the Phillies’ only threat of the night against Valdez until Kyle Schwarber’s blast to lead off the sixth inning for a 395-foot homer.
It was a stunning shot considering that Valdez had snuffed the life out of them all game. He retired 10 batters in a row until the homer, including five consecutive strikeouts, only one shy of Sandy Koufax’s World Series record in 1963. Valdez gave up just two hits, struck out nine batters, and allowed only two batters to even hit a fly ball to the outfield in his six-inning performance.
Baker turned the game over to his bullpen, and it was over.
The Astros, for the second time since 2017, are World Series champions to go along with their four American League pennants and six consecutive trips to the ALCS.
Baker, who began his day by grabbing coffee in Rice village, stopped off at the shoe store, dropped by the cleaners, and then listened to Big Mama Thornton, “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog,” ended his evening with his greatest moment as manager.
“How about them Astros,” Baker said after the game.
Now he’ll forever be known as a World Series champion manager.
Follow Nightengale on Twitter: @Bnightengale
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dusty Baker gets a World Series ring: Astros manager wins in 25th year