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Bronson Arroyo: These are the 3 best leaders I played with during 16 MLB seasons

Bronson Arroyo pitched for 16 years in Major League Baseball with four teams. Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Joe Robbins / Getty Images

This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.

Bronson Arroyo pitched for 16 years in Major League Baseball with four teams. These are the three best leaders he played with.

Jason Varitek, catcher for the Boston Red Sox

Jason embodied everything you look for in a leader.

He was always one of the hardest workers and crushed leg workouts. That’s why he had those massive thighs.

He was organized. He was like a half-coach, half-player. He ran the pitching meetings. On most teams, the pitching coach does that. But Jason was the guy we leaned on. He was also the only guy I ever played with who wore the captain’s C on his jersey. He was the only guy I was ever around who pulled that much of the load.

When you’re looking for somebody to lead the charge, you want the guy who you think can go to the top of the mountain and fight a grizzly with a knife. That was Jason.

We played the Yankees one day, and Alex Rodriguez was a guy we were trying to beat on the inner half of the plate. I wound up hitting him with an 87 mph sinker on his elbow pad, and he just started yelling at me: “Throw that s— over the f—ing plate.” He yelled that out twice.

Jason just wasn’t having it. Alex was big and strong and a huge superstar, so it took somebody with some balls to stand up to him in a meaningful way. Jason didn’t even hesitate. He was just right there to protect myself and the whole pitching staff.

Jason would have done that 15 times in a row if he had to.

Dusty Baker, manager of the Cincinnati Reds

Dusty was a very unique manager. He felt like the principal of the high school, and at the same time, he felt like one of the cooler kids in class.

That’s hard to do.

I’ve seen it many, many times where a guy goes from an assistant coach to the manager and they become a different person under the stresses of the job. Dusty was not that guy. He was always a player’s manager. He always sided with players over contracts and disputes with the front office or anything.

He felt like he was pulling on the same rope as we all were.

He was also the most eclectic guy I’ve ever been around. I’ve been in his office, where he had Willie Mays hanging out while at the same time he was sending flowers to Hank Aaron’s wife and then calling Joey Votto in to give him two tomatoes he had grown because he heard Joey wasn’t feeling good and then handing me a T-shirt that was signed by Buddy Guy.

I’ve never seen a guy juggle so many humans in that type of way.

If a pitcher he had coached in the past came into the locker room, he’d call me into his office and he’d tell stories and he’d say: “That reminds me of you, Bronson. You guys pitch alike.”

He really knew how to connect people together. He did it throughout generations.

The greatest gift that Dusty had was that he could relate to a player off the field. That was his No. 1 leadership skill.

He would be out at the club. He might see me out and know I wasn’t pitching in three days, and he might see somebody else on the team and send them home. “Get outta here. What are you doing?”

That was leadership in a way, too.

He commanded a ton of respect from his players and everyone around the league. If Dusty told you something, you knew he believed it. He wasn’t bulls—ing you.

I really thought that was remarkable. There are some managers who try to play the middle of the road: They tell you one thing to your face, but they tell you something different to management. Dusty wasn’t that guy, and that made him special.

Kevin Millar, first baseman/outfielder for the Boston Red Sox