DALLAS • They have been dancing this dance for 18 years. But now they no longer will be partners, even if they were occasionally contentious ones.

With the exception of just one season, 2007, when Dusty Baker was doing television gigs between being fired by the Chicago Cubs and being hired by the Cincinnati Reds, Baker has managed against recently retired Cardinals manager Tony La Russa since 1993.

For the record, Baker, counting his time in San Francisco, was 100-103 against La Russa, who was with both Oakland and the Cardinals for that count. But that doesn't include the three-game sweep by the Reds against the Cardinals in May of last season when La Russa was sidelined by shingles. So, in games played by their teams when both were officially the managers, they would be dead even at 103.

And now, with La Russa off the field, the rivalry appears to be over. To Baker, that is too bad.

"It will be a little strange, I think," said Baker on Monday at baseball's winter meetings. "We had a long conversation (Baker called La Russa) after they won the World Series.

"I just told him that I was going to miss him, doing battle against him. It's going to be a little different but I've got a pretty good relationship going with (new manager) Mike Matheny, too, and that's going to be a little different, not knowing how he's going to manage."

Asked about his head-to-heads, some featuring finger-pointing and salty language, with La Russa over the years, Baker said, "That's OK. It's all good, man. I like battles. That's what makes the game fun. You hope they don't turn into physical battles, but ... sometimes they do."

A postseason spectator after his team had won the National League Central Division the year before, Baker said he actually could appreciate the Cardinals' comeback in becoming World Series champions.

The Atlanta Braves, who led the wild-card race before suffering pitching injuries and falling apart, "let them back in the door," said Baker. "And (the Cardinals) had a 30 percent change in personnel.

"It's more important how you finish than how you start. Once they got to rolling and once they got in the door and once they got good starting pitching and they got their bullpen straightened out ...

"Everybody said, 'Where'd they come from?' Imagine where they would have been had they had their bullpen straightened out. How many games did they blow?

"They'd have won the division by 10 games if they'd had their bullpen together — because they definitely could hit.

"It just shows you that you don't give up and throw in the towel because you're (many) games out. In modern baseball, there's very little room left anymore for the great comeback.

"Teams start selling off guys. But the Cardinals were buyers instead of sellers."

After four seasons with the Reds, Baker, who has managed 17 seasons in the league, is entering the last year of his contract. But he appears unconcerned.

"When I was with the Giants, all I signed were two-year contracts," said Baker.

"They said, 'How does it feel to be a lame duck?' I was on crutches. It's no big deal to me.

"How many people in life have one-year contracts? A lot of people are on paycheck-to-paycheck contracts."

Baker's team could benefit from the Cardinals' Albert Pujols and Milwaukee's Prince Fielder signing with teams outside the National League Central. Baker would take it one step farther.

"I wouldn't mind if they signed in the American League," said Baker, smiling. "I love watching American League games."

Milwaukee manager Ron Roenicke, who came from the American League to take the Brewers' job last season, admitted it took him a while to put aside his club's loss to the Cardinals in the league championship series.

"We played three good games and three poor games," said Roenicke. "It's not easy to just get over that the day after.

It's not easy to get over a week after.

"I'm certainly over it now. I'm very happy with the season we had. Ninety-six wins were fantastic. Winning the division was great.

"I thought we played a great series against the (Arizona) Diamondbacks. And it's not that I thought we played terrible against the Cardinals. I thought we played well and, all of a sudden, we wouldn't play well."

For the postseason, Roenicke benched regular third baseman Casey McGehee, who had been struggling, but otherwise didn't think he had changed his approach. "The media was a little different," said Roenicke. "Certainly way more critical of what I would do."

Roenicke has more issues now, such as whether Fielder will be back with the Brewers (unlikely), not to mention more than a half dozen other free agents.

"We need to have guys start committing one way or the other," said Roenicke. "We really can't wait until late January to figure out what we're doing with our ballclub."

And there is flamboyant, effervescent, sometimes annoying outfielder Nyjer Morgan, who can energize one team and inflame another at the same time.

Roenicke surely must have bit his tongue until it bled at times last season and, at other times, he spoke to Morgan about some of his antics.

"I'll tell you what," said Roenicke. "If he can have the same year he had last year, he can do the same thing.

"Now, I'm not saying it's OK with some of the things that he does, the stuff with the fans. He knows he's got to calm down that stuff a little bit.

"He's a feisty guy and he's got a hockey mentality and I don't mind that. But there are some things he knows he needs to stay away from.

"He doesn't do those things and say, 'Oh, I'm fine with it.' It bothers him. Sometimes, he'll come in and talk to me and say, 'I shouldn't have done that.' I think he'll get better at it."

Another manager who met reporters Monday was Arizona's Kirk Gibson, named the manager of the year in the National League after his team won the Western Division title in Gibson's first full season. He had never managed anywhere until, as a coach, he took over as interim manager in 2010.

Matheny will be guiding the Cardinals without ever having managed. Gibson, who knows Matheny because they were at rinks together for tournaments as hockey parents, said he really didn't know much about Matheny's situation or his thinking. But Gibson said, "I know he's a catcher. He's very smart. He'll be tested, just as he was as a player.

"But he won't have to worry about concussions, though. That will be something good."