With the 2011 season winding down, some fans are wondering whether Davey Johnson will return as manager in 2012. They point to the fact that the Nationals seem likely to finishes around 10 games below .500 after they were two games over the break-even point when Johnson took over. Some have referenced his age, and wonder if the game has “passed him by,” whatever that means.
When the Nationals announced that Johnson was taking over as manager, it marked only the second time he’d assumed managerial duties during a season.
Forty-four games into the 1993 season, the 20-24 Cincinnati Reds fired the extremely popular Tony Perez, and replaced him with Johnson, who had been hired as a consultant. Perez had been promoted the previous October to replace the departing Lou Piniella, who had won the 1990 World Series with Cincinnati in 1990.
Perez at the time said it “wasn’t fair” to be judged over just 44 games, and upon his hiring, Johnson also said so few games really wasn’t an accurate measure. Nonetheless, Perez was out and Johnson was in, and over the ensuing 118 games the Reds went 53-65 and finished fifth in the NL West, 31 games behind Atlanta.
Ray Knight was brought in as Reds hitting coach when Johnson arrived. He said fans needed to look beyond the wins and losses with the ’93 Reds.
“We honestly didn’t have a lot going for us that year,” said Knight, a current MASN analyst. “Our top pitcher [Jose Rijo] won 14 games. Our best everyday players were Reggie Sanders and Barry Larkin, and we had a ton of injuries.”
Things changed, and quickly, for the Reds when Johnson had the team from spring training forward. The ’94 club scored the most runs in the NL and finished first in the new Central Division. A work stoppage ended the season in August that year, and there was no postseason play. The ’95 Reds were second in runs scored, and won the Central again. They lost the NLCS to Atlanta after beating the Dodgers in the NLDS.
Two straight division titles usually earn a manager a contract extension, but during the ’95 season Reds owner Marge Schott announced that Johnson wouldn’t be back in ’96, and that Knight would be the new Reds skipper. Schott had some personal issues with Johnson, who’d been hired when she was on suspension from baseball for making inappropriate remarks about minorities.
Does history repeat itself? If you’ve studied history you know that sometimes it does, if only by accident. I won’t guarantee a first-place finish for the 2012 Nats, but every manager likes to put his own stamp on a ballclub in spring training. It’s safe to assume that the daily routine in Viera, Fla., next February and March will have Johnson’s mark all over it. The Nationals have a far more impressive core group of players than did the ’93 Reds. And in the end, players win games, not managers.
Examiner columnist Phil Wood is a baseball historian and contributor to MASN’s Nats Xtra. Contact him at [email protected].
