When the Houston Astros signed Dusty Baker as their new manager, January 29, they didn’t just add an experienced baseball skipper and qualified leader, but they brought on board a qualified captain of industry.

Baker, driven and motivated as both an investor and businessman, has a winery and an energy conservation firm on his resume.

It should be noted, also, that he’s clearly well-versed in the delicate art of delegation: He’s relying on people he’s trained in each of his business concerns to mind his respective stores while he’s away, traveling the country in pursuit of an American League Western Division flag at the very least.

Baker’s talents in handing off responsibility will not only serve him well in 2020 at the helm of the Astros, but will be absolutely necessary to employ. He’s now undertaking the unenviable chore of not only leading a baseball team in the traditional sense, but restoring the trust and integrity of an organization hemorrhaging both in the wake of the recent sign-stealing scandal.

No stranger to commerce and high finances, Baker has, through the years, sold cars and insurance. He even lost money during a brief real estate stint. In the late 1980s, after closing the door on his playing career, he was a stockbroker for a time before returning to baseball as a coach.

The Lure of the Grape

Founded by Baker and veteran winemaker Chik Brenneman as an “urban winery brand” specializing in handcrafted and limited production wines, B & B Wine Company began in 2013, the skipper’s final year (of six) as Cincinnati Reds’ manager.

This, after family and friends were heartily toasting Dusty, a Sacramento native, and his 2012 Vintage Syrah produced from his backyard “gentleman’s vineyard.” Syrah is a lush, fruity, and dark-skinned grape variety used to make red wines.

Now, Baker Family Wines produces handcrafted wines in small lots from grapes grown in their two-acre vineyard in Placer County. Baker Family Wines officially kicked off in earnest in 2015, about the time Dusty signed with the Washington Nationals to begin the 2016 season as their skipper.

Son Darren is currently an infielder at Cal-Berkeley and is draft eligible this June.

Related: Darren Baker Likely Astros’ 2020 Draft Pick?

Pitchers of Wine vs Pitchers Who Whine

With the grape-growing season roughly corresponding to the nine-month baseball season, Baker’s responsibilities tending his harvest sound quite similar to his diamond duties.

If you heard him talking about “constant vigilance throughout spring and summer to guard against disease, injury and fatigue,” you’d be hard-pressed to discern if his challenge was referring to players or grapes.

As Baker explained to the Washington Post in September 2016, “The similarities are, you have to put in the time, the work and the effort. You start by pruning the vines and getting them ready for the season.

“That’s what spring training is. But then you have to stay on top of everything. A farmer cannot rest and say, well I’ll get it next week. I go out there every day and check on my vineyard and my garden, because something can happen quickly.”

Along with pinching and pruning his grapes every evening, Baker also tends a garden with family edibles such as collard greens, kale, and something called elephant garlic, an outsized variant of the garden leek.

Canopy management, as it’s called, is also important for his grapes. Baker continues: “I have to keep the south side of the vines shady, while I want more sun on the north side. You really have to stay on top of it.

“That’s like baseball,” Baker intoned, knowingly. “As soon as you think we have it made and we’re playing great, suddenly we’re on a seven-or eight-game losing streak.”

Treating baseball players like grapes, and vice versa, may make for a challenging conundrum for Baker in 2020, especially taking into account a recent two-year foray into growing four vines of table grapes for eating, and his assessment: “They’re so sweet.”

Astros players will be relieved to know that Dusty was describing those fruits of the vine, and not the handful of players he met shortly after signing his contract.

Sol and Inspiration

At about the same time his winery was taking off, also between his Reds and Nats gigs, Baker founded a renewable energy start-up, Baker Energy Team, based near his Roseville home.

Focusing on sustainable energy solutions for companies and communities, BET provides “microgrid technologies that deliver affordable energy with improved efficiency, resiliency and sustainability,” according to their website.

Baker practices what he pitches, too, as solar panels liberally line his home and adjacent buildings and are even placed strategically behind his vineyard.

According to an article in the December 11, 2018, Bloomberg, Baker Energy Team is involved in “developing, pitching, and working on large projects for historically black universities, cannabis-growing operations, tribal reservations, and commercial businesses.”

Furthermore, according to the article, Baker is “looking at mentorships with historically black colleges, such as internships for engineering students. He’s also working to start a similar business in electricity-hungry parts of Africa.”

An investment banker friend of Baker’s tipped him off to a couple of clean-tech conferences on the west coast and Las Vegas a few years ago. A glaring omission in the industry caught Baker’s eye and motivation: “There were no minorities, very few women,” Baker remembers. “This is an opening for me.”

Baker employs five associates, a handful of strategic advisors, and about 10 independent sales reps.

2020 Foresight

If Baker can manage to harvest a bumper crop of wins this season and energize his Astros to the top of the AL West, not to mention a couple of postseason series, he’ll have the monopoly on the clubhouse celebration concession.

I’m sure nobody would mind popping the cork on some choice vino over the customary bubbly. Coin toss, anyone?