Howling at the L.A. moon

Do we really have to explain who Dusty Baker is, even in Los Angeles? Apparently so.

Baker played eight season for the Dodgers. He got MVP votes in two of those. He was the VP of the 1977 NLCS against the Phillies. He played in three World Series for the Dodgers and in four different postseasons, and he hit .282 in those eaeaons. Al Campanis got him from Atlanta, where Baker had been the on-deck hitter when Hank Aaron hit No. 755, and the price was Lee Lacy, Tom Paciorek, Jim Wynn and Jerry Royster. Like everyone else, Campanis found life with Baker infinitely more productive and humanistic than life without him.

Baker has managed five different teams and taken them all into at least one post-season. Five of his past six teams have gone into the playoffs, and four of his past five have won their division. When the cheating scandal of 2017 threatened to topple the franchise, Houston hired Baker, now 73, as an institutionalist, a smoother of waters. The Astros also knew that Baker connects with players as few others ever have, and in his third year, Houston won the American League and lost the 2021 World Series to Atlanta.

Fans are not given baseball tutorials when they enter a stadium, so there was a fair number who saw Baker wearing a Houston jersey and reflexively booed him Tuesday night.

Why players are booed at an All-Star Game is a question for a gentler time, but the incident irked Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

“I wish they wouldn’t have booed Dusty,” Roberts said. “He had nothing to do with it.”

He’s right. Baker was managing Washington to 97 wins in 2017.

“Whether I’m cheered or booed at this point in my life and my career doesn’t matter,” Baker said. “I’ve been cheered and booed all over the country. Just do what you got to do. I just wonder about the forgiveness of mankind, and also at the same time, you know, these guys are here because they want to be here. I hope they don’t boo them because it doesn’t do any good.”

Humankind’s ability to forgive is underrated, but we’re talking about Dodgers fans here. They’re the first to rip Roberts when their postseason hopes come apart, despite Roberts’ .627 win percentage. Mostly, they have begrudged Houston’s World Series victory ever since Charlie Morton notched the final out in Game 7, which was played in Dodger Stadium, far away from the Astros’ Wizard of Oz technology and its dugout traschcan.

The Astros have been booed and harassed throughout baseball since then, but George Springer (now with Toronto), Jose Altuve and ex-Dodger farmhand Yonder Alonso begged off the All-Star Game in the face of more abuse. (A doubleheader on Thursday with the Yankees, which Houston swept, was also a factor.) Instead, Justin Verlander caught the flak, as did Kyle Tucker, who wasn’t in Houston yet, and then Baker.

Again, these aren’t sticks-and-stones, and the Astros are big boys who know the history.

To review: MLB announced the one-year suspension of Houston manager A.J. Hinch and general manager Jeff Luhnow in spring training of 2019. along with a $5 million fine and the forfeiture of first and second round draft picks in 2020 and 2021. This wasn’t enough justice for the Dodgers, because none of the offending Astros were suspended, although bench coach Alex Cora lost his job in Boston for a season, and Carlos Beltran lost his chance to manage the Mets.

The players’ testimony made the punishment possible, and they got immunity in exchange. The Astros fired Hinch and Luhnow. Hinch manages Detroit now; Luhnow, a polarizing figure from the beginning, owns soccer teams in Mexico and Spain and is apparently out of baseball for good.

The Dodgers still fixate on Game 5 of that World Series, which was tied 2-2 after L.A. had won Game 4 (in Houston, by the way).

Clayton Kershaw had a rough night, primarily because the Astros showed a mysterious knack for laying off 38 of his 39 sliders. Still, Los Angeles led 8-7 going into the bottom of the seventh when Roberts called up Brandon Morrow for the fifth consecutive game, something he’d promised not to do pregame.

Springer and Carlos Correa homered off Morrow, who retired none of the four hitters he faced, but still the Dodgers had it tied 12-12 with two out in the ninth. Then Kenley Jansen hit Brian McCann, walked Springer and gave up the game-winning single to Alex Bregman.

The Astros still needed another win, and the Dodgers survived Verlander in Game 6. But Springer doubled and homered off Yu Darvish in the first two innings of Game 7, with Cody Bellinger throwing away an out, and Morton mowed down the final 11 Dodgers for the Astros’ first championship.

The Dodgers were immediately suspicious, just as the 2018 Milwaukee Brewers were when they lost the NLCS to the Dodgers. When the gavel came down, there were calls to nullify the Astros’ vicctory, suspend the entire roster, remove Altuve’s MVP award and maybe audit Joel Osteen’s tax returns.

A couple of points:

— Sign-stealing is approximately as old as the hot dog, and it isn’t just done on the field, according to the tales of Bobby Thomson’s 1951 home run. When Washington beat Houston in the 2019 World Series and won all four games in Minute Maid Park while doing so, it constructed an elaborate sign-protecting scheme. The Dodgers didn’t get around to doing that in 2017. This is not to say the Astros shouldn’t have been punished for their tech mischief. They should have been, and probably more emphatically. It is to say that you should lock your doors at night.

— Not all hitters magically overachieve when they detect a certain pitch is coming. If that were true, Mariano Rivera would never have reached Yankee Stadium. Some hitters, including some Astros, don’t even want to know. But, time and again. the Astros have proven they didn’t really need the help. Since 2019 they have finishrd first, ninth and second in A.L. OPS and rank fourth this year. Altuve had three 200-hit seasons and won two batting titles prior to 2017.

For that matter the Astros have played in three of the past four full-season World Series. The Dodgers’ last one of those was 2018, although they won the bubble Series in 2020.

In the interim the Astros have lost Springer, Carlos Correa and Gerrit Cole to free agency and have somehow improved. They might have the best rotation in baseball with Cristian Javier, Framber Valdez, Luis Garcia and Jose Urquidy joining Verlander, as Lance McCullers rehabs. Luhnow’s regime signed all four of those starters that accompany Verlander, and it drafted Jeremy Pena as a shortstop who has kept Houston from missing Correa.

The Astros are poised to win for years to come, which means the booing will remain, an affirmation in reverse. The Dodgers aren’t going anywhere either. A World Series rematch seems inevitable, maybe in three months. If it means more boos for Baker, baseball’s top nobleman, that’s a negligible price to pay.

Unfortunately Dodgers fans aren’t discerning enough to focus their anger on Houston players whose fingerprints were on the crime scene. That would emphasize the Astros’ original sin: They were too good to cheat.

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