NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 Dusty Baker thinks the Washington Nationals need more speed, so he wants more African-American and Latino players on the roster.<\/p>\n
He also vigorously defended Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman, who was accused of choking his girlfriend and shooting a gun during an incident in October. And Baker also had a different take on domestic violence.<\/p>\n
At the winter meetings as a manager for the first time since he was fired by the Reds after the 2013 season, Baker answered more than 30 questions in a free-wheeling interview session Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re always in need of left-handed pitching, left-handed hitting, and in need of speed,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that\u2019s the number one thing that\u2019s missing, I think, in the game is speed. You know, with the need for minorities, you can help yourself \u2014 you\u2019ve got a better chance of getting some speed with Latin and African-Americans.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not being racist,\u201d he added. \u201cThat\u2019s just how it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
There were no black managers in the major leagues at the time Baker was hired by Washington last month. The 66-year-old former manager of the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and Reds came to the defense of Chapman, who played for Baker in his first three big league seasons after defecting from Cuba.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, he\u2019s a heck of a guy. I mean, a heck of a guy. I\u2019ll go on record and say I wouldn\u2019t mind having Chapman,\u201d Baker said. \u201cNo, no, he is a tremendous young man with a great family, mom and dad, and what he went through to get here and what his family had to go through to get here. I was with him through the whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n
Baker said he did not read the police report.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard it from my son,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, who\u2019s to say the allegations are true, number one? And who\u2019s to say what you would have done or what caused the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
Pressed further, Baker said he thought it was a positive step Major League Baseball and its players\u2019 union adopted a domestic violence policy last summer, created after several high-profile incidents in the NFL last year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a great thing. I mean, I got a buddy at home that\u2019s being abused by his wife. So I think this policy needs to go further than the player. I think the policy should go to whoever\u2019s involved,\u201d Baker said. \u201cSometimes abusers don\u2019t always have pants on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we need to get them both in a room and try to come up with something. It\u2019s a bad situation. That\u2019s the first thing my momma told me when I was a kid. Don\u2019t hit a woman, even my sister. Man, I was like you better leave me alone before I tell my momma.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a bad situation,\u201d he said. \u201cI learned that young, but a lot of people maybe didn\u2019t learn that.\u201d<\/p>\n
A couple of hours later, the Nationals tweeted a \u201cclarification\u201d from Baker:<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way I would ever condone domestic violence. No way … We gotta stop it, big time. I\u2019m hoping that (the Chapman I knew) is innocent,\u201d Baker told MLB Network Radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) \u2014 Dusty Baker thinks the Washington Nationals need more speed, so he wants more African-American and Latino players on the roster. He also vigorously defended Cincinnati Reds closer Aroldis Chapman, who was accused of choking his girlfriend and shooting a gun during an incident in October. And Baker also had a different […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6839"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}