World Series: Dusty Baker, Rob Thomson make the Astros and Phillies a bit more likable

PHILADELPHIA — Outside of their respective cities, you’d be hard-pressed to find more unpopular Major League Baseball teams than the Astros and the Phillies.

The Astros, fairly or not, continue to be trailed by the sign-stealing scandal that, in the eyes of many, tainted their 2017 title and taints just about everything organizationally they do to this day. No team is booed more frequently and with more ferocity in opposing team ballparks.

The Phillies do not engender that level of disdain, but let’s face it: Few teams from Philadelphia are popular outside of Philly.

The managers? That’s where the story changes somewhat dramatically.

You’d be just as hard-pressed to find two more popular, universally respected dugout figures that the ones in this World Series (Game 3 was rained out Monday night).

When the Yankees hired Luis Rojas last offseason to be their new third-base coach, one National League executive texted: “If you don’t like Luis Rojas, you’re likely the problem.”

The same can be said of Astros manager Dusty Baker and Phillies manager Rob Thomson.

Baker, 73, who won a World Series as a player with the 1981 Dodgers, is in his third World Series as manager. His previous trips ended in disappointment — a brutal seven-game loss to the Angels as Giants manager in 2002 and a six-game loss to Atlanta last season.

Baker is 2,093-1,790 in 25 years as a big-league manager, with stops in San Francisco, Chicago (Cubs), Cincinnati, Washington and Houston. There were playoff heartbreaks in each stop, most notably Game 6 of the 2004 NLCS (aka “The Steve Bartman Game”) while managing the Cubs.

“Everything about him, I like,” Houston second baseman Jose Altuve said.

After the Astros’ four-game sweep of the Yankees in the American League Championship Series, Astros players chanted “Dusty! Dusty! Dusty!” during the postgame clubhouse celebration.

“One hundred percent,” Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, among those remaining from the 2017 title team, said of wanting to get Baker that elusive title as manager, according to MLB.com.

“We love going out there every single day and competing for him. He loves this team. He loves winning. He loves the game of baseball. And 100% we want to win for him.”

Thomson, 59, hears similar praise from his players. The baseball lifer, who spent 28 years in the Yankees’ organization before heading to Philadelphia as Gabe Kapler’s bench coach after the 2017 season, took over for the fired Joe Girardi in June with the Phillies at 22-29. They stumbled a bit in September and barely hung on for the National League’s final playoff spot, getting in with only 87 wins.

They got hot at the right time, sweeping the Cardinals in the NL Wild Card Series, beating Atlanta in four games in the Division Series, then dispatching the Padres in five games in the NLCS.

Like Baker, Thomson has little interest in accepting credit for his team’s success.

“I’m not really doing the work, the players are doing the work,” said Thomson, who received a two-year extension on Oct. 10 as the interim tag was officially removed. “I’m just sort of making the final decision on who goes where.”

Phillies players, not surprisingly, see it a bit differently.

“I mean,” rightfielder Nick Castellanos said, “I trust anything that man does.”

During his nearly 30 years with the Yankees — the last 10 of which were spent on the big-league coaching staff — Thomson developed those kind of close relationships with players ranging from Derek Jeter to Alex Rodriguez to Brett Gardner to Aaron Judge. He interviewed for the head job that went to Aaron Boone after Girardi was let go after the 2017 season.

“Rob is one of my favorite people in the world. I’m so happy for him and [hitting coach] Kevin Long,” former Yankee Mark Teixeira said via text. “He was a huge reason for the success the Yankees had for decades. It’s great that he’s finally been given the chance to manage a team.”