A Tribute To Davey Johnson, The Greatest Manager Not In Cooperstown

 

As a native New Yorker one of those debates you got into for decades was whether Gil Hodges should be in the Hall of Fame. Hodges was a good power-hitting first baseman for the 'Boys of Summer' during the 1950s who passed away at the young age of 49. The decision by Cooperstown for the next half-century was one of the most controversial, even though Hodges's offensive numbers were at best above average for a first basemen to get in. The real reason, of course, was that he was the manager of the Miracles Mets. Eventually, of course, Hodges got in.

Strangely enough to this point the second – and to date, last – manager of a Mets team that won the World Series – rarely made the discussion for the Hall of Fame even though he was not only the best manager the history of the franchise but also one of the most successful managers of all time. Yet Davey Johnson died on Saturday still never having been inducted into Cooperstown even though he always had a more convincing resume to get inducted even before he finally retired in 2014.

There's been quite a bit written about Johnson in regard to the Mets and there will doubtless me much more in the weeks to come. So it's worth looking at Johnson's career as a whole and making the argument that the Washington Post made earlier today that Johnson was a Hall-of-Famer.

Johnson made his major league debut in 1965 for the Baltimore Orioles. During the first half of the 1960s the Orioles were slowly but surely becoming one of the best teams in the American League. The previous year they had lost the American League Pennant to the Yankees by 3 games. Johnson didn't make much of an impression his rooking year only hitting .170. The Orioles still won 94 games but they finished 8 games behind the Twins for the A.L. Pennant.

However that December the Orioles would send Milt Pappas, Jack Baldschun and Don Simpson to the Cincinnati for Frank Robinson. That year Robinson won the American League Triple Crown and became the first player to win the MVP in both the American and National League. That June the Orioles traded Jerry Adair to the White Sox on June 13. For the rest of the year Johnson hit .257, 7 home runs and 56 RBIs, finishing third for Rookie of the Year.

That year the Orioles would win their first ever American League Pennant and stun the baseball world by sweeping the reigning world champion Dodgers in four straight games. This unofficially began the Orioles dynasty in which they would win four American League Pennants and two World Series in six years.

It didn't seem like it would be one when the following year the Orioles dropped to seventh place as most of the young pitchers – including 21 year old Jim Palmer – all got sore arms. Manager Hank Bauer would be fired halfway through the 1968 season and the Orioles would hire Earl Weaver. This would cement the Orioles place as an A.L powerhouse for the next fourteen years and Johnson would be there for the best three of them.

Back in that era the best second basement hit somewhere between .270 and .280, averaged nine or ten home runs a season and most importantly were great defensively. Johnson did all of the above, particularly on defense. He won the Golden Glove for best second baseman in the American League from 1969-1971, made the All-Star team from 1968-1970 and combined with Brooks Robinson, Mark Belanger and Boog Powell to provide one of the best infields in baseball history. Mayo Smith, who managed the Tigers during this period would say, "Trying to hit a ball through the Baltimore infield is like trying to throw hamburgers through a brick wall.

During the 1969-1971 stretch, the Orioles averaged 106 wins a season. In 1969 alone they won 109 games and for the first time fielded their awesome three-man rotation of Palmer, Mike Cuellar and Dave McNally. However they are eternally remembered as being the victims of the Miracle Mets and Johnson for making the final out of that Series. The Orioles didn't dwell on it long; the following year they won 108 games and would sweep the Reds in five games.

In 1972, however, the Orioles would trade Frank Robinson to the Dodgers and the Orioles offense collapsed. They still managed to finish in third place but at that point the Orioles had replaced Johnson at second base by Bobby Grich and Johnson was traded to Atlanta. That year Johnson had the greatest season of his career hitting 43 home runs with the Braves, a record for a second baseman. That same year Hank Aaron would hit 40 home runs and Darrell Evans would hit 41, the first team in history to have three teammates with forty home runs in the same season. The Braves, however, still finished fifth in the N.L West. Johnson would be on the field for Hank Aaron's historic 715^th home run but the Braves released him at the start of the 1975 season. He played the next two years in Japan, then would end up playing with the 1977 Phillies when they won the N.L. Division title. He hit two grand slams as a pinch hitter in 1978, the first major leaguer to do this but he would be traded to the Cubs soon thereafter and then retire.

The following year Johnson was hired to be the manager of the Triple A- Miami Amigos. The  league he was in folded during its season. In 1981 the Mets hired him to manage their double A team. In 1983 their Triple AAA team. The following year the Mets brought him up to manage.

The Mets had pretty much collapsed after Hodges had died in 1972 and while they had managed to win the pennant in 1973 they had once again become one of the worst teams in baseball. The year before they had finished dead last in the N.L East with the second worst record in all of baseball. No one expected much from Johnson.

In his very first season Johnson took the Mets to 90-72 and into a division race that the Cubs ended up winning by 6 games. It was the best record any Mets team had since the 1969 championship. He was helped immensely by the incredible rookie season of Dwight Gooden and right fielder Darryl Strawberry. Their futures would be helped even further when the Mets acquired all-star catcher Gary Carter.

Over the next six years Johnson would have seven consecutive over .500 seasons and averaged 98 wins per years. They would win two division titles and the 1986 World Series and finish first or second in their division 6 times. But at the time and later on Johnson received very little credit for it even though he would be the winningest manager in Mets history, a pattern that continued much of his career.

Part of it may have been due to the fact that the Mets were unable to ever win back-to-back titles. It didn't help matters that his managerial tenure with the Mets took place before the wild card and the extended postseason, meaning one had to win the division or you got nothing.

In 1984 the Mets had the third best record in the National League but finished six games behind the Cubs. In 1985 the Mets finished 98-64 the second best record in the National League and the third best in baseball overall but because they finished three games behind the Cardinals it amounted to nothing. In 1987 the Mets finished 92-70, again the second best record in the National League but they finished three games behind the Cardinals again. It took 100 games for them to win the N.L  East in 1988 and of course the Dodgers beat them in seven games on their way to the most surprising World Series victory in their career.

Eventually these events combined with a bitter feud with Mets GM Frank Cashen led Johnson to be fired early in the 1990 season. The Mets finished second again that year but in 1991 the first full season without Johnson they dropped back below .500 again. They wouldn't return to the post season for another eight years – at which point Johnson had already been back twice.

Two years after being let go the Cincinnati Reds hired Johnson 44 games into the 1993 season. Just like with the Mets he revived their fortunes almost immediately. At the time of the labor stoppage of 1994 the Reds were in first place and in 1995 he led them to the first official NL Central title in history. However early in that year owner Marge Schott announced that regardless of how the Reds did Johnson would not return in 1995.

In the first official postseason the Reds defeated the Dodgers in the NLDS in what is to date the last postseason series the Reds have won. They would be swept by the Braves in the NLCS en route to the World Championship. Johnson was fired almost immediately afterwards.

He then returned to Baltimore as manager in 1996. The Orioles had not been to the postseason since winning the World Series in 1983 and had finished the 1995 season under .500. In his first season the Orioles went 88-74, good enough for the Wild Card. They beat the defending American League pennant winners Cleveland, who'd won 99 games that year. The Orioles would lose the ALCS to the Yankees in five games.

The following year the Orioles went 98-64, the best record in the American League. Again they won the ALDS over Seattle but this time they lost to Cleveland in six games. But once again Johnson had a dispute with ownership, this time Orioles owner Peter Angelos. The same day Johnson won the American League Manager of the year Johnson handed in his resignation. The Orioles wouldn't have another winning season, much less appear in the postseason, until 2012.

Two years later Johnson was hired for the Dodgers. On May 3 he won his 1000^th game as a manager the fastest any manager had done in their career. Unfortunately it was the highpoint of his season as the Dodgers had an under .500 season. Considering how high-priced the talent was, Johnson was fired the following year even though the Dodgers made it to second place.

Johnson spent much of the next several years mainly in International baseball, managing the U.S. Olympic Team in Beijing. By that time he'd been hired to the front office for the new Washington Nationals in 2006. In 2011 he was hired as manager and once again the luck was in. They won 80 games the most in the franchise's history. And that is where I have my clearest memory of him.

In 2012 the Nationals had their best record in history, going back to their tenure in Montreal when they won 98 games the most in major league baseball. They met the St. Louis Cardinals in the Divisional Playoffs. Going into Game 5 they had a 6-0 lead in the third and were ahead 6-4 in the eighth and 7-5 in the ninth. Then in the ninth, one out away from going to the postseason they completely collapsed and gave up four straight runs, losing to the Cardinals. As someone who rooted for the underdog and wanted Washington to go back to the pennant for the first time since the Coolidge administration that ninth inning was excruciating. Johnson was N.L. Manager of the year again. Johnson went into the 2013 season claiming, 'World Series or Bust'. It turned out to be bust, even though it was another great season: they went 86-76, finishing second place in the N.L. East. Johnson retired after that.

Johnson's record of a manager is one of the most impressive in the history of baseball. In all but one of his seasons he won at least 85 games. He is tenth all time in winning percentage for managers with 1000 wins or more, with a lifetime winning percentage of .561. Every manager above him on this list has been inducted into the Hall of Fame before his passing.

But it's not just that he's was a winning manager; it's that before and after he left every team he managed (with the exception of the Dodgers) they were under .500 or worse. The Mets have not won a World Series since he led to that title in 1986. The Reds have not won a postseason series since he left in 1995 and neither have the Orioles. The Nationals did win the World Series after he left in 2019 but they spent much of the next five years under .500.

He did all of this, I should add, with troubling relationships with ownership in every tenure he had, frequently leading teams that were low-market with large amounts of money. He is one of the pioneers when it comes to using sabermetrics particularly with the Mets, a full fifteen years before Billy Ball and with far more success than the A's ever got. But Johnson was never respected for how well he led his teams by either ownership or the media.

And as a result four separate times while he was still alive he missed induction into Cooperstown, twice on the Veterans Committee and twice with the Today's Game Ballot Committee. While this was happening one of the men ahead of him on the list – Billy Southworth – finally did get inducted into Cooperstown.

Perhaps because Johnson only won a single World Championship and after that never got to the World Series ever again he was never appreciated as the great managers his contemporaries Bobby Cox, Joe Torre and Tony Larussa were. And because his tenures at various teams were never particularly long as opposed to the overwhelming number of Hall of Fame Managers, he never received the same recognition the way that previous managers like Weaver did.

The fact remains Johnson deserved to be in Cooperstown long before his final stint as manager in 2011 and far more than Gil Hodges ever did. He will always have a special place in the history of the Mets; it is long past time he had that respect in Cooperstown.