Darren Baker still can't bat boy 10 years later

"I just think that they took it a little bit too far, as far as the young men and women that at that age, most of them either have their own games or they have lost interest in the game," Dusty Baker said. "When I think about him and I think about back in the day when it looks like there were Boones everywhere. There were so many out there — 'Are you a Boone?' 'Yeah, I'm a Boone' — then look at the Bells, Griffey, Barry Bonds and all the guys that are playing then and now because they were out there with their fathers. To my knowledge, the lawyers got involved and they said it had something to do with the child labor laws and, you know, the laws got us."

Darren Baker — dressed in full Reds uniform, as usual — planned to track down Snow before Saturday night's Game 1 of the NL division series, to say "just hi, just normal." He sat on the podium in the interview room alongside his dad before Saturday's game.

The Barry Bonds-led Giants came within six outs of winning a World Series title in Game 6 at Anaheim, then lost in Game 7. It wasn't until two years ago that San Francisco finally captured the franchise's first title since moving West from New York in 1958.

Little Darren was in tears after the '02 team fell short, then soon after moved off to Chicago as his dad left on difficult terms and became manager of the Cubs.

"When I was 3, I understood the teams and the magnitude of the situation," he said. "I guess they just wanted to win badly."

When the Reds visited this summer, the Giants held their 10-year celebration of the '02 World Series to coincide with Baker being in town. Darren threw out the first pitch, then got picked up and hugged by Snow and thrown over the former first baseman's shoulder in a reenactment of sorts to that frightening play.

His 63-year-old father, who recently missed 11 games while recovering from a mini-stroke and irregular heartbeat, was expected to receive a warm ovation from the sellout crowd in the Giants' waterfront ballpark.

"In the beginning, when they announce his name with the lineups," Baker said. "After that, he kind of turns into the enemy."