Baseball may be a young person’s game, but Dusty Baker is proof that there’s still a place in the sport for an old-timer with decades of experience. At the age of 73, Baker finally reached the pinnacle of his profession, winning his first World Series championship as a manager in his 25th season and evoking memories of 2003, when another elder statesman of the game, Jack McKeon, guided the Marlins to a World Series title as a 72-year-old. 

Jeffrey Loria owned the Marlins for that 2003 World Series, and he experienced firsthand the value a seasoned skipper like McKeon could provide. He sees similar traits in Baker, whom he also knows from decades in Major League Baseball. Loria, who sold the Marlins to a group led by Bruce Sherman in 2017, penned a column for the Wall Street Journal earlier this week comparing Baker’s work guiding the Astros over the past three years to the job McKeon, now 91 years old, did after taking over the Marlins in 2003.

• Baker set to return to Astros for 2023

When the Marlins won, McKeon became the oldest manager to lead a team to a World Series title, but that distinction now belongs to Baker.

“When I hired Mr. McKeon in May 2003, the Marlins were losing,” Loria wrote. “He was presented to me as a manager who could handle ‘a real fixer-upper’ of a team, exactly what we needed. Mr. Baker had an even tougher task. He was hired by the Astros after they lost the 2019 World Series to the Washington Nationals. His new team was also about to be punished by Major League Baseball for a 2017 sign-stealing scandal.

“It’s a lesson for baseball, and beyond baseball, that when you need morale, morals and management, it helps to look at people like Messrs. Baker and McKeon who aren’t ‘spotlight seekers’ but have quietly given their lives to the game.”

Like Baker, McKeon’s title came in his fifth stop as a big league manager. He managed the Royals, A’s, Padres and Reds before being hired by the Marlins to replace Jeff Torborg following a 16-22 start in 2003. Under McKeon, the Marlins were 75-49 and won the NL Wild Card. After getting by the Giants in the National League Division Series, the Marlins edged Baker’s Cubs in a seven-game NL Championship Series and defeated the Yankees in six games in the World Series.

When he was hired by Houston, Baker inherited a talented team that was coming off two World Series appearances in three years. He led the team to an American League Championship Series appearance in 2020 and a World Series loss to the Braves in 2021 before winning it all in 2022.

Baker, who had a 19-year run as a player that included two All-Star selections and a World Series title with the 1981 Dodgers, managed the Giants from 1993-2002 before stints with the Cubs, Reds, Nationals and Astros.

After Houston’s title-clinching win over the Phillies in Game 6 at Minute Maid Park, Baker expressed appreciation for his long journey to the top of the mountain.

“I’m so happy that it took this long, because I would have been gone a long time ago, then you affect the players' lives and their families and that’s what it’s all about,” Baker said.