Baker focuses on the moment

Dusty Baker was back at Wrigley Field and in first place Thursday. Nowadays, he's manager of the young Cincinnati Reds.

He says he's enjoying himself but that he's taking no extra satisfaction in being ahead of his former team in the standings.

"The only satisfaction is we're still in first in the division," Baker said before his Reds beat the Cubs 3-2 in 10 innings. "That's the goal. The goal was coming in first, and the goal was leaving in first.

"That's behind me now. I'm going forward."

One of the knocks on Baker is that he doesn't "like" young players. He's heard it before.

"I'm enjoying them a lot," he said. "This is what I've always yearned for since I started. When I first started, I had young players. Robby Thompson and Darren Lewis, and Will (Clark) was still young at the time, and Matt Williams.

"I like being around young people. I like having youngsters as well as some veterans to give those guys knowledge and wisdom and young players giving energy despite being young.

"The thing about it is I don't worry about what a lot of people say because a lot of people don't really know me. They just come up with these things that they think they know me. As a manager, you don't really get to choose the team that you have."

Baker said his time in Chicago (2003-06) was happy at the beginning, but he looked worn down by the time he was let go at the end of a disastrous 2006 season.

"I try not to reflect on it," he said. "You can't do anything about it. It's gone. One of my favorite books now is 'The Power of Now,' because it's dealing with now."

Both Cubs manager Lou Piniella and White Sox skipper Ozzie Guillen have said Chicago is one of the toughest, if not the toughest, places to manage.

Baker didn't disagree.

"It's tough," he said. "One of the reasons it's tough is because nobody lets anything go in the past. That's why it's tough. Everybody's still counting. I was here four out of the 100 years (the Cubs haven't won a World Series). You talk to most people and they act like I was here the whole 100 years. I'm only 61 years old."

As far as his upstart Reds being "for real," Baker said he'd let others judge.

"I don't tell them anything," he said of his players. "I just let my players play and let them make up their own minds. We knew we had a better team when we started. You don't know how good your team is until you play to assess what you have and what you don't have and what you may need. We're just playing. We're just playing ball and playing hard and concentrating."

One Cub was ready to weigh in favor of Baker.

"Dusty's a great manager," said first baseman Derrek Lee. "It's no surprise. Dusty knows how to get the best out of his guys. He's proven that over the years. There's no surprise about that."