Astros owner Jim Crane on Dusty Baker: "You can’t win 106 games. You can’t win a World Series without a great manager"

Finally, Dusty Baker has finally won it all. The legendary skipper has now won the World Series both as a player and as a manager. Baker won the 1981 World Series as a player during his time with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yesterday, he cemented his name alongside the all-time greats after winning it as head coach.

Houston Astros owner Jim Crane, who gave an interview right after the Astros' World Series win, was quick to acknowledge and praise Baker's brilliance.

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“You can’t win 106 games. You can’t win a World Series without a great manager.” - excerpt from Houston Astros' owner Jim Crane's interview with KPRC 2 Houston

Crane has stated that he plans to discuss the contracts of Baker and general manager James Click (whose contracts are up) after the team's victory parade.

Dusty Baker makes history

Dusty Baker leads all African-American managers with 2,093 career wins.

With his 2022 World Series win as skipper, Dusty Baker became just the seventh man ever to win the Fall Classic both as a head coach and as a player. He is now in the same company that includes Lou Pinella, Alex Cora, Joe Girardi, Dave Roberts, Mike Scioscia, and Davey Johnson.

Baker also broke the record for the longest gap time in between World Series title wins, be it as a manager or a player. The legendary skipper waited 40 years since his last title win, breaking Bob Lemon's 29 year wait after the latter won it all as a player in 1948 for Cleveland and in 1978 as the manager of the New York Yankees.

About the author

Daniel Santiago is a journalist who has been reporting on baseball at Sportskeeda since 2022. He was drawn towards the sport after the underlying statistics and the analysis surrounding it grabbed his attention.

Daniel particularly enjoys furnishing reports about historic events in baseball and analyzing the game through a statistic-based outlook, based on Fangraphs and Baseball-Reference. This is in line with how he enjoyed watching baseball as a pastime. As a writer, he is very particular about cross-checking from reputable sources and doing his due diligence.

He became a lifelong Hideki Matsui fan after his exploits in the 2009 World Series for the New York Yankees. Among the current generation, Daniel's favorites include Shohei Ohtani and Jung Hoo Lee. Daniel is a huge follower of Asian baseball and both Ohtani and Lee have been in the top echelon of their respective leagues during their time with the NPB and KBO.

His favorite moment as a baseball fan was the final at-bat of the 2023 World Baseball Classic between Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout. He believes there aren't many words to fittingly describe the intensity of the moment.

As an avid sports fan, Daniel watches other sports and Esports when not writing about baseball.

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Edited by Amlan Sanyal