On one side of the clubhouse a grinning Todd Frazier was surrounded by the cameras and notebooks of a postgame media throng that finally wanted to talk to the clean-up hitter, not about his month-long power outage at the plate, but his ninth inning, two-out home run to dead center that tied the game against Milwaukee on Thursday afternoon.

On the other side of the room, catcher Dioner Navarro was accepting atta-boys from his fellow Reds players unaware that his right ear was still frosted white from the congratulatory shaving cream pie that teammates had slammed into his face after he followed Frazier with a game-winning triple to score Jay Bruce and give Cincinnati a 2-1 victory in the final regular season game at Great American Ball Park.

Throughout the clubhouse – where players quickly dressed into shirts and ties for their flight to Pittsburgh — there was a muted sense of celebration and relief after three losses in the past five games.

The Reds – like waggish Austin Powers, the over-the-top spoof of James Bond — had gotten their mojo back.

Yet, one thing was still missing.

Dusty Baker was not at the helm of this playoff-bound club and that was on Brandon Phillips’ mind as he quietly dressed in a corner.

“I didn’t feel right when we celebrated without him the other night after we won the division and it feels a little like that now,” said the Reds second baseman. “I won’t enjoy it like I want to until he’s back. He belongs here.

“We’ve got all kinds of personalities in this room and he knows how to deal with all of them. To me, he’s like a father figure. I love that man. And when you feel like that about someone, you’re scared when something like this happens.”

Nine days ago the 63-year-old Reds manager was admitted to Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago with an irregular heartbeat, something he’s deal with in the past. But two days later, he suffered a mini stroke. The damage, he told some of his players, was minimized because the hospital’s stroke team was able to treat him immediately.

He was released from the hospital Sunday and, on Tuesday, he and his doctors met with team management and he briefly spoke to his players.

The past two days he’s spent time behind the closed door of his office, although Thursday he did talk a couple of minutes to Reds writer Hal McCoy and said he felt “lucky.” He’s scheduled to return to the team Monday for the season-ending series in St. Louis and then the playoffs.

“This is his team, he’s the constant here and we want him back,” veteran infielder Scott Rolen said.

In private moments Thursday, several players echoed those thoughts. And you heard that same thing in the red-walled hallway outside the manager’s office where bench coach Chris Speier, running the show in Dusty’s absence, held court.

That message was on display in the stands, too, especially up in the second deck where a hand-printed sign was taped to the overhang railing in Section 302. It simply said:

“Dusty…Hurry Back.”

Although Baker has been peppered by some critics in this glorious season – some of their complaints about lineups and his embrace of veterans is baseball-rooted and some of the rips likely have more prejudicial roots – the naysayers are way off base, Reds star Joey Votto said the other day.

And Thursday one Red after another talked about the behind-the-scenes magic Baker has worked this season.

“He’s hellbent on a belief system that, regardless if you believe it or not at first, he’s gonna make you a believer,’ said 35-year-old pitcher Bronson Arroyo. “He believes his guy is gonna get the hit when it’s needed. He believes their guy isn’t gonna field the ball he routinely does.

“He also brings in a very diverse way of living life. He understands us. He’s much closer to the players than the average manager . Those others are kind of like the principal in high school who’s off in his own office with the door closed and you don’t know him.

“But Dusty, when he goes out at night – whether it’s the bar, the restaurant — he wants you to join him and shoot the (breeze.) He understands what it’s like to be a player – he was one for like 19 or 20 years – and because of it we’re closer to him. And that enables him to push our buttons differently than other managers could. He gets a more honest response from us.”

Arroyo’s kinship deepened over the love of music they share. Go into Baker’s office and there’s a photo of bluesman John Lee Hooker and another of jazzman John Coltrane on the wall.

A guitarist and vocalist himself, Arroyo has made his own album and said Baker values music: “He’ll go out at night and come back with a t-shirt for me from a guy like Buddy Guy. He just wants to show an appreciation for musicians. Man, that goes a long way.”

As Speier put it: “He has an empathy for each person he meets. He truly cares about these guys as individuals, not just ballplayers. Go through the clubhouse and they’ll tell you they look up to him as a friend.”

And as a baseball man, said centerfielder Drew Stubbs. He related how Baker pulled him aside when he was in a slump and told him: “I believe in you. I’ve got your back.”

Frazier talked about how Baker helped him with his hitting: “He could teach a 2-year-old to hit.”

Bruce summed it up: “He’s an easy guy to play for. He makes you want to play hard and do what maybe a lot of other people thought you couldn’t.”

And that’s what has happened this season. Thursday the Reds won their 94th game.

“He believes through and through that we can win a World Series here and he brings that energy and it definitely rubs off on a lot of our guys,” Arroyo said.

And while that’s one reason the team wants him back, Rolen said there’s a far bigger reason:

“When your colleague, your friend, a person who really means something to you has something like this happen, everything else goes on the backburner.

“With me, baseball is second tier to Dusty coming back healthy. It doesn’t matter to me where we are, what we’re doing or where we’re going, I care about Dusty.

“I think we all do.”