Dusty Baker says scrutiny from 'bloggers and tweeters' played role in his retirement

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Dusty Baker has put the pencil down for the final time, as he has announced his retirement.

Baker's Houston Astros lost the American League Championship Series in seven games to their AL West rival and eventual World Series champion Texas Rangers. It was the franchise's seventh-consecutive LCS, tying an MLB record set by the Atlanta Braves in the 1990s.

Houston won the World Series last year, giving Baker his long-coveted first title as a manager. (He won as a player for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981.) He inked a one-year deal before this season started.

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Manager Dusty Baker, #12, of the Houston Astros, looks on during the national anthem prior to Game 6 of the ALCS between the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park on Sunday, October 22, 2023, in Houston, Texas.  (Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

However, the 74-year-old hinted that he received some brushback from people for the team not having the same success as they have had in recent seasons (although they were one game away from their third-straight Fall Classic).

Baker said on "The Steam Room" with Ernie Johnson and Charles Barkley that Astros fans had become "spoiled," and it pushed him to retirement.

"We had a lot of success here, Ernie and Charles, and then the last couple of months here weren't very pleasant, because we weren't ten games ahead," Baker said on the podcast. "You spoil people. They think you're supposed to win this every year running away, and it's not like that."

Baker said the scrutiny that annoyed him, though, wasn't necessarily from credentialed media or baseball writers.

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