When the batboy grabs the headlines
Onetime Giants batboy Darren Baker
Less than three months after Darren Baker – then the 3-year-old batboy and son of San Francisco Giants manager Dusty Baker – finds himself narrowly missing being plowed over at home plate during the World Series, Major League Baseball 23 years ago today sets a minimum age of 14 for batboys.
Darren Baker gains regional attention in Northern California before the World Series by running out to pick up bats during some of his father’s home games.
Young Darren, though, nearly becomes a national headline for all the wrong reasons during the seventh inning of Game 5 of the 2002 World Series against the Anaheim Angels.
That is when young Darren innocently, albeit mistakenly, runs from the dugout to home plate to retrieve a bat, but instead finds himself running into a middle of a live play as San Francisco’s J.T. Snow scores the first run of a two-run triple hit by Kenny Lofton.
The problem arrives when Darren Baker not only fails to see Snow rapidly approaching the plate to give the Giants a 9-4 lead, he also does not see the hard-charging David Bell right behind Snow with San Francisco’s 10th run.
Snow, who clearly inherits a great pair of hands from his father – former NFL Pro Bowl receiver Jack Snow – quickly grabs Baker by his extra small team jacket as he crosses the plate, lifts him into his arms and saves him from a potential collision with Bell and Angels catcher Bengie Molina.
J.T. Snow, left, in 2002 rescuing batboy Darren Baker
Years later, Darren Baker says if not for Lofton being his favorite player, the near collision never would happen as fellow batboy Nikolai Bonds – the 13-year-old son of Giants left fielder Barry Bonds – prepares to pick up the bat.
After the play is over, of course.
Like a batboy should.
“Nikolai said he was going to get Kenny Lofton’s bat before me,” Darren Baker tells MLB.com in 2022, “and (Lofton) was my favorite player, so right when the bat dropped, I ran out there. Without the video, it’s like it never happened.”
Fast forward more than two decades later and Darren Baker today is an aspiring second baseman in the majors, where late in the 2024 season he makes his debut with the Washington Nationals.
Baker, Washington’s 10th-round pick out of the University of California in the 2021 amateur draft, does quite well in that debut, going 7-for-14 in nine games to close out the 2024 season in D.C.
Baker – now four weeks shy of his 27th birthday – spends all of 2025 at Class AAA Rochester before becoming a free agent.
Despite that early success as a major league player, Baker knows, at least for now, he is best remembered nationally for his time as a 3-year-old batboy during the 2002 World Series.
Darren Baker in 2024 with the Washington Nationals
And, Baker embraces that.
“It’s a funny moment,” he says. “I talk about it at least once a day. It’s something that will stay forever.”
Especially with his father.
Dusty Baker not only needs to answer questions from the national media after his son’s near collision during Game 5 of the 2002 World Series, he also needs to deal with a far more imposing presence.
Namely, Grandma.
“I saw the play unfold,” Dusty Baker says, “and I was thinking about what my mom told me: ‘He shouldn’t be out there, he’s going to get hurt.’ I said, ‘Mom, I know what I’m doing.’
“First call I get in the clubhouse (after the game) was my mom to tell me, ‘I know you listen to me sometimes. Just listen to me this time.’ She told me to thank J.T., and I thanked him for saving him and the whole situation.”
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