Dusty Baker doubts he'll manage again due to 'intellectual discrimination'
Dusty Baker believes that front offices prefer to hire managers with a prestigious educational background over those with years of experience.
"Today's game isn't any different than it was before," Baker told Bob Nightengale of USA Today Sports, "but it's a different time in our country. There was always race discrimination to a degree, but now there is age discrimination, and salary discrimination, and intellectual discrimination."
The Washington Nationals dismissed Baker in late October after the team was bounced in the National League Division Series for the second year in a row. Baker believes it's unlikely he'll get another managerial job, though he's currently employed as a special advisor to San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer.
"I had people ask what school did I go to? I was like, 'What difference does that make at this point? I've got 50 years in the game,'" Baker said. "But all I hear about in baseball are people going to these Ivy League schools, and this and that, so that's what I mean by this certain amount of intellectual discrimination. It's like you're penalized if you didn't go to an Ivy League school."
None of baseball's 30 current managers graduated from an Ivy League school (a classification that includes Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University).
Baker, 68, managed the Giants, Chicago Cubs, Cincinnati Reds, and Nationals over his 22-year career (.532 winning percentage), making nine trips to the postseason and one World Series appearance.
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