Dusty Baker reflects on state of baseball after Venezuela beats Nicaragua in WBC
Dusty Baker did not walk into this World Baseball Classic talking like a man chasing one more win. He talked like a builder and a teacher. Someone who already had the résumé but still wanted the chance to leave even more behind.
On Monday night, that idea ran into a Venezuelan club with too much talent, too much pitching and too much experience. Venezuela (3-0) beat Nicaragua (0-4) 4-0 at loanDepot Park, and with it ended Baker’s short-but-loud return from retirement. Paid attendance was 27,844, and it felt like the most evenly split crowd Pool D has seen all week, a duel of flags, chants, and competing pockets of noise under the closed roof.
After the final out, the 76-year-old Baker was asked directly if this could have been his last game managing.
“Yeah, well, every game could be my last game as a manager. At 76 years old, this could be my last day, you know,” Baker said with a grin.
“So you got to enjoy every day… Maybe if I’m still around and still feeling healthy, I mean, who knows?… maybe the Olympic team to represent your country.”
Baker’s team did not play like it was outmatched early. It just couldn’t keep the game from tilting when the smallest things went wrong, and Venezuela punished every opening.
Venezuela opened the scoring in the first inning without needing a hit that left the park. Ronald Acuña Jr. worked a six-pitch walk, stole second, and then advanced to third when the throw got away. Jackson Chourio drove a ball to deep center that Ismael Munguia caught as he crashed into the wall, a sacrifice fly that brought Acuña home for a 1-0 lead.
Venezuela stretched the lead in the third when Acuña jumped on a sinker and cranked a 402-foot homer to right-center to make it 2-0.
Nicaragua finally created its cleanest chance to answer in the fourth. Benjamin Alegría opened the inning with a line-drive single. Ismael Munguia reached, then Mark Vientos lined a single into left and Emanuel Trujillo added another base hit to keep the inning moving. The crowd lifted with it, but the threat turned at the plate and closed without a run crossing.
Acuña made sure that missed chance hurt. He struck again in the fifth, driving an RBI single up the middle to push Venezuela’s lead to 3-0. In the sixth, a dropped pop up at third base helped extend the inning, and Wilyer Abreu’s sacrifice fly pushed the Venezuelan lead to 4-0.
The ninth became a clean snapshot of the gap Venezuela built all night. Andrés Machado struck out the side to finish it, blowing a high fastball past Munguia, getting Vientos to chase a changeup after he battled from 0-2, then ending it with a 99 mph fastball up to Cheslor Cuthbert.
Baker didn’t pretend he could find joy in the result, but he also didn’t talk like a man leaving empty-handed.
“Well, I don’t feel much joy and happiness after a loss,” Baker said. “But the teams that beat us had excellent pitching, and they also had good hitting, especially the Venezuelans and the Dominican folks. And we’re not where they are yet. Hopefully in the near future, you know, we’ll catch up to them.”
That’s where Baker kept steering the conversation all week, away from one game and toward the build. He talked about infrastructure, development and the long game, pointing to the Dominican Republic as the clearest model of what sustained investment can create. An ESPN report on MLB academies in the Dominican Republic noted that 450 to 500 players are being signed each year, and tracked how the number of Dominican players in the majors surged alongside the academy boom: 110 in 1987, 309 in 2000, 503 in 2009, and 640 by the time Wilmer Difó debuted in 2015.
Baker’s own tone has stayed consistent from the first day of pool play. He said the Classic reinforced how global baseball has become and how different the sport looks when you feel it through the fans.
“I learned that the game is global now,” Baker said earlier in the tournament. “I really hadn’t seen the love and the joy of the game of baseball from a fan’s perspective… when I’m leaving in between games and the game’s over and there’s still 10,000 Dominicans out there partying or 5,000 Nicaragüenses, I’m like dang, man, this is fun.”
Monday also carried a second story line that fit Baker’s week perfectly: he managed across the diamond from Omar López, a man he has mentored for years.
López, Venezuela’s manager, said pregame the relationship matters. He called it an honor and a privilege to face Baker, and said Baker has left him with lessons that go beyond matchups and lineups. One of them, López said, is simple.
“Do not ever forget to be generous with people,” López said Baker told him. “Always be generous, always help people.”
Postgame, Baker returned the compliment and added a projection.
“He’s gonna be a manager someday in MLB,” Baker said. “The older guy never likes the mentee to beat him, but they got a good club.”
Then Baker looked ahead to the matchup the entire pool has been waiting for: Venezuela vs. the Dominican Republic on Wednesday night.
“I wish I could stay here for Wednesday’s game,” he said. “It’s going to be like two heavyweight fighters… it’s going to be a heck of a game, but with two supreme countries playing ball against each other.”
For Nicaragua, the larger point was never supposed to be one week. That was part of the reason Vientos described Baker the way he did during the tournament.
“You’re talking about a legend in the game that has been there, done that, many times for many years,” Vientos said earlier in the week. “Every time he speaks, I just sit back and listen, and I want to be a sponge around him and soak up as much information as possible.”
Baker sounded like someone who wasn’t ready for the moment to be over.
“Well, the next few days, like I told my team, I wasn’t ready to go home,” Baker said. “I’m not ready to go home yet, but I got to go home because I have an obligation… I got to go help the Giants in Phoenix and go watch my son… he’s with the White Sox.”
Then came the last scene. Baker stood up to leave, and the room responded in a way that felt bigger than one game. Reporters clapped and gave him an ovation as he walked out of the press conference room. In the doorway, he embraced López and the two shared words as the Venezuela manager entered.
This story was originally published March 10, 2026 at 11:37 AM.
