Considering what might have been, Davey Johnson looked tanned, rested and comfortable in his own skin on a recent steamy Central Florida evening, as well as in the uniform of the Sanford River Rats of the Florida Collegiate Summer League.
“It’s no biggie in my mind,” he said when asked if his two-month coaching position for a courtesy salary was a comedown from where and who he once was, on top of the major leagues and the toast of New York. “If you’re a baseball person, and love it, it’s what we do.”
A man who admittedly drank a little too much and once popped Rolaids in the Mets’ dugout like M&M’s, Johnson, 67, has survived a bad case of managerial burnout, the loss of a daughter to a degenerative tissue disease and a stomach ailment that might have
英雄合击 killed him had he not checked into the Mayo Clinic.
It was in 2005, right after his daughter, Andrea, died, that Johnson felt a stomach pain worse than his old Mets teams had ever caused him with their world-class carousers.
He was treated with antibiotics, but the pain returned. He had part of his stomach removed, but the problem persisted.
“Finally, I go to the Mayo Clinic and they tell me that I had a ruptured appendix and that I was lucky to be alive,” he said. “My body had walled it off with an infection inside. They had to drain it for three months before they could operate.”
Johnson said he emerged from the ordeal with a healthier outlook. His body, which shed 25 pounds after the Dodgers fired him a decade ago, has remained trim without access to the clubhouse buffet table and without inherent industry stresses.
Older Mets fans might do a double take this weekend when Johnson returns to New York for his first look at Citi Field and for induction into the team’s Hall of Fame on Sunday, along with Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden and the former general manager Frank Cashen.
What took so long for the Mets to honor the manager with the most victories in franchise history? Twenty-four years after Johnson’s Mets beat the Red Sox in the World Series, 20 years after he was fired by Cashen, better late than never. He might even take the opportunity to say what he never got the chance to after Cashen knocked on his hotel room door in Cincinnati, 42 games into the 1990 season.
“Frank wasn’t on the trip, so I knew he was there to fire me,” Johnson said. “He had a car waiting, and he wanted me to just slide out of town. I felt I should have addressed the team, but I understood — it was New York, it was a big deal and so I said, ‘O.K., I’ll slide out.’ But out of my whole tenure, when I look back, that’s the one thing I regret. I wish I could have thanked the guys for the effort.”
After all that has been said of and written about the 1986 Mets — principally in Jeff Pearlman’s 2004 book, “The Bad Guys Won!” — he prefers to remember them as the team that best embodied baseball’s most cherished adage.
“I mean, two outs, two strikes, down two, 3-2 in the World Series — what were the odds of that game not being over?” he said. “I think it sent a message to all the people in New York, no matter what their life was like, there’s always a chance.”
Johnson had managerial success elsewhere after leaving New York, but the job security never came close to the six years he had with the Mets. He could be stubborn and demanding — once insisting on a “Lou Piniella clause” in his contract, ensuring that he
英雄合击 would make more than Piniella, the Yankees’ less-credentialed manager — but he considered himself Mr. Rogers compared with some of his employers.
“I’ve had some strong personalities that I’ve managed for, is the way I’ll put it,” he said, meaning Marge Schott in Cincinnati and Peter Angelos in Baltimore, meddlers of the highest order.
It was speculated that Schott fired Johnson in 1995 after the Reds won a division title because he was living with a woman, Susan Allen, who was not his wife. Johnson eventually married her, and they settled permanently in Winter Haven, Fla., after Johnson left Los Angeles.
Sitting on the River Rats’ bench in Sanford Memorial Stadium with his legs crossed during batting practice, Johnson indulged in an old major league vice — stuffing a wad of chew into his cheek.
“Life is good,” he said. “The way it turned out after I left L.A., I got to spend time with my daughter before she died. The other kids are doing great, my wife has a successful clothing store and, you know, I get a lot out of working with these guys, too.”
Johnson’s players are young enough to be his grandsons and respectful enough to call him Sir. But this being baseball, even the college summer league variety, informality is the unwritten dugout law, so he happily answers to Skip.
Skip has been in baseball longer than many of his players’ parents have
英雄合击 been alive. Thus the subject of the 1986 Series, Game 6, the ball rolling through Bill Buckner’s legs, requires some explaining to a River Rat.
“Think I’ve seen that on the MLB Network — Curse of the Bambino,” said Logan Senelis-Jose, a 19-year-old middle infielder. “That was Skip’s team? Man, I didn’t know that.”
Or, for that matter, that Johnson, as a player, was in the lineups when two men — Henry Aaron and Sadaharu Oh — surpassed Babe Ruth in career home runs.
Johnson has come a long way from his first days in pro baseball and actually full circle. He was born in Orlando, a short drive from Sanford.
He mouths the word retirement but remains an adviser to the Washington Nationals and is in uniform for his second college summer league season. When asked by his players if he had interest in the Florida Marlins job when it opened in June, Johnson said he would manage again, but only “if the situation were perfect.”
Given that his idea of perfection would require some control of personnel decisions, he realizes he probably is not going back to the big leagues, though he said he had turned down several offers to be a bench coach in recent years.
Why at this stage even think of reprising a life of glorified baby-sitting for multimillionaires and of suggestions that the man making out the lineup cards should do more to keep them in line?
“Listen, we had support systems in New York, psychologists and such to help the young guys control the fame and fortune,” Johnson said. “I would talk to guys about what they needed to do, but I’m not going home with them at night, not charting who they’re running with and all that.
“Dwight Gooden, when he came to me in ’87 and said he had a drug problem — I mean, that was the biggest shock in the world. He had great coaching, great parents, was always the first one at the ballpark, always smiling. Now, Strawberry, I was on him for three years. I’d say: ‘God gave you a great body, get some rest at night. You can’t be not getting your sleep, out chasing.’ And he’d agree with me, and he’d be good for about a week.”
Once in a while, Johnson will drop a name to his players, who typically have no idea who he’s talking about. They have their parents to consult, or the Internet.
“My dad couldn’t believe it when I told him I was going to be coached by Davey Johnson,” said Todd Hankins, a 19-year-old second baseman. “He said, ‘Really?’ I didn’t know who he was, so I Googled him, and the first thing that came up was a photo of him in the USA jersey.”
Yesterday’s news — Johnson in recent years coached in the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic — as opposed to Mets ancient history. The record stands, though. His guys — however characterized — still won, and the Mets haven’t won since.
