Dusty Baker smoked a joint with Jimi Hendrix, because it was the 60s, man

Dusty Baker’s new book features an amazing anecdote about a run-in with Jimi Hendrix.

Former MLB outfielder and manager Dusty Baker has a new book coming out, but it’s not about what you’d think. 

In Kiss the Sky, which comes out next month, Baker writes about his experience at the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. (The New Yorker reviewed the book and spoke with Baker about music, baseball and more.) His mom gave him the tickets, $20 spending money and allowed him to take the car to the festival for his 18th birthday, shortly after he was drafted by the Braves. 

The festival was Woodstock before Woodstock. Janis Joplin was there. The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Simon and Garfunkel. Most famously, it was where Jimi Hendrix set his guitar on fire. 

It was 1967, at a rock festival, so of course there was plenty of marijuana in the air. But Baker, with a bright athletic future, promised to stick to a “no grass” rule. He did, he says, until he ran into Hendrix a year later in San Francisco. 

From The New Yorker: 

After his first stint in the bigs, Baker writes, he ran into Jimi Hendrix on the streets of San Francisco one night and, having abandoned the “no grass” rule, smoked a joint with him. (He’s mum about the words they exchanged, if he remembers them.) All of this by nineteen.

It’s probably too late for MLB to suspend him, right?

- Dan Gartland