Dusty Baker and Derek Lowe Exchange Not So Nice Words

Dusty Baker and Derek Lowe won't be grabbing a beer together anytime soon, even if Lowe apparently enjoys the occasional brew or seven. See, what we have on our hands here is a little war of the words. The Wednesday game between the Reds and Indians stirred up some bad blood after Mat Latos buzzed (not hit) Lowe on Baker's behest. Lowe, pitching for the Indians by the way (who knew?), did not take the inside pitch lightly. Prepare yourself for some serious blockquoting starting with Lowe's tirade after the game from MLB.com...

"Dusty will deny it," Lowe said. "I have zero respect for the guy -- not that it matters. I imagine he'd say the same about me."

"You can go ask him. He'll deny it like he has no idea," Lowe said of Baker. "To say it didn't come from Dusty ... Mat Latos was with the San Diego Padres the last four years, he has no idea what's going on. Again, you can ask him and he'll say he doesn't know [anything] about it, like he always does.

"This goes back to my last year with the Dodgers. ... You can go ask [Baker] right now, and he'll say he has no idea what you're talking about. But just watch the game. Mat Latos has nothing to do with anything that has gone on. How would he know? Why in the [world] would you throw a 96 mph fastball, first pitch, inside to a pitcher? Ask him."

And we're off to a hot start. Lowe doesn't specify what happened with Dusty back during his Dodger days. I'm guessing it had something to do with cheeseburgers but have been unable to confirm. Baker wasn't available for comments after Lowe's comments.

Oh but Baker certainly saw them. Earlier today, Dusty struck back with great vengeance and furious anger. Here are a few of the highlights but the whole lambasting can be found at Cincinnati.com...

“He had some words for me. I really didn’t want to make a public thing or a public spectacle. He’s the one who brought it up. He had some choice words for me. I really don’t care if he respects me. It doesn’t matter."

“I’m not denying nothing. I didn’t order anyone to hit him. I told (Mat Latos) to buzz him and make him uncomfortable. That’s what happened. Nobody hit him. Then he hit our guy."

“Man, I don’t care,” Baker said. A lot of people don’t respect me. He don’t respect himself. The word was whatever he did and said probably there was a good chance he was drinking at the ballpark and he don’t remember what he said or what he did. OK."

“When he said I shook my finger at him to say I didn’t have nothing to do with it. It wasn’t to say I didn’t have anything to do with it. It was to say: Don’t mess with me or my team. That’s what that means. He better learn sign language. OK."

Delightful. Dusty kinda-sorta admits there was some issue between the two of them from the past (cheeseburger-gate) but doesn't go into any details either. Then Baker just lets it rip. The "doesn't respect himself" and "drinking at the ballpark" were especially eyebrow-raising. His grammar was a little suspect but I can let that slide during some good trash talk.

I've never been the biggest Dusty fan (Clint Evans of Diamond Hoggers is fond of my line "Dusty Baker is why we can't have nice things") but I might be coming around. I've never seen this side of Dusty before. That was almost a professional wrestling promo he cut. I hope this isn't over. I want to see Dusty grab the mic out of a reporter's hand, shove the reporter down and then go off while pointing into a camera. Oh yeah...