Davey Johnson, 1991 Swell Baseball Greats #46

Happy 75th birthday to Davey Johnson, who excelled as both a Gold Glove second baseman and a manager for the Orioles. If you're wondering how he performed in the 1975 season, well, he had an incredible slash line of 1.000/2.000/3.000 (710 OPS+) for the Atlanta Braves! Yep, Davey rapped a pinch hit double in his one and only plate appearance in his 11th season in the majors. He then jumped to Japan to play for the mighty Yomiuri Giants, becoming the first foreign player on the club in nearly two decades. The culture shock was significant, and Johnson batted just .197/.275/.356 in 91 games while facing scorn from the media and fans. He even lost 25 pounds.

But a renewed determination allowed him to bounce back in 1976, batting .268 with 26 homers for the pennant-winning Giants and earning recognition as an All-Star and the Japanese league's top-fielding second baseman. However, Davey clashed with manager Shigeo Nagashima, a former great player in his own right who had recruited Johnson as his on-field replacement. The skipper belittled Johnson over a midseason arm injury and a late-season illness, casting doubt on the veracity of his player's ailments. So Davey returned to MLB in 1977, finishing his playing career in a reserve role with the Phillies and the Cubs, and then jumping right into managing in the minor leagues in 1979.

Incidentally, I picked up this card at the Orioles FanFest last Saturday. We had a good time as usual, though it was even more exhausting with a fully mobile toddler to chase. I'll post details and pictures soon...ish.

Vintage Fridays: Davey Johnson, 1970 Topps #45

Orioles Magic (Magic Magic Magic Magic) Number: 15.

It would be 14, but our old pal Koji Uehara seems to be running on fumes these days. I was scoreboard watching all night on Thursday from my perch in Section 340 of Camden Yards, and I looked on in horror as a 4-3 ninth-inning lead for the Red Sox turned into a 5-4 walkoff loss. I overheard the gory details from a similarly aggravated fan sitting behind me; his smartphone delivered the bad news of a game-tying home run by the declining Mark Teixeira followed by a game-winning blast by Padres castoff Chase Headley. It just served as a reminder that the Orioles will have to do it themselves.

Last night's win over Cincinnati provided more white-knuckle moments than I expected following the home team's two-out, six-run outburst in the first inning. The heavy lifting done by Nelson Cruz (career-high 37th home run and counting), our own Padres castoff Nick Hundley (Earl Weaver Special), and Jonathan Schoop (fourth-inning solo homer, his third in as many games) was cancelled out by a four-run Reds rally against Brad Brach and Tommy Hunter in the top of the seventh. I sat in the humidity and stewed as home plate umpire Sean Barber's strike zone seemed to shrink to the size of a postage stamp. I tried not to revert to past bad behaviors like vocally venting my frustrations at the Oriole players and personnel, but I may have said a few things in the heat of the moment. Still, I saved my true vitriol for Barber, who got his own subtle shout-out from Buck Showalter in the latter's postgame remarks. But all was forgotten just a half-inning later, as J. J. Hardy sliced a bases-loaded single to left field with two outs to put the Birds back on top, 9-7. Hunter pitched around a leadoff double in the eighth, and Britton shrugged off a two-strike, two-out single from the irritatingly good Devin Mesoraco (4-for-4, 2B, HR, 4 RBI) to notch his 33rd save and a sweep of Cincy. That's a 9-2 homestand for the Orioles and an 82-57 record. As Andy of High Heat Stats tweeted last night, the O's now officially have three straight full winning seasons for the first time since 1983-1985. They were also above .500 from 1992-1994, but the last of those three years was cut off at 112 games thanks to the players' strike. Now it's off to Tampa, and three more cracks at a Rays team that the Birds have handled pretty well this season.

It was nice visiting with you, Davey, but I hope the Orioles can zero in on Steve Barber tonight.

Vintage Fridays: Davey Johnson, 1969 Orioles Postcards

This big (5.5"x3.5"), full-color postcard photo of Davey Johnson came to me a few weeks back from reader and fellow collector Randy. I'm not certain that it's from 1969, but that's my best guess because Davey is wearing the sleeveless home jersey that the Orioles donned occasionally during the 1968 and 1969 seasons. I love getting a rare look at one of the less-common uniforms in team history, and I always welcome oddball vintage items into my collection. It could also be a trick of perspective, but I'm pretty sure Johnson's eye black is lopsided. Didn't he use a mirror?

Davey Johnson, 2004 Upper Deck Timeless Teams #63

I can't rave enough about 2004 Upper Deck Timeless Teams. After the 1993 flagship set, it's probably my favorite thing that UD ever did. It might be even better without the reliance on foil logos, but what can you do? The photos dominate the design, front and back. On the front you've got fresh photos of all of the great and the just plain good players on the most decorated teams in each franchise's history...even a good selection of in-game photos. Here's Davey Johnson roaming the infield pre-pitch, circa 1971 or 1972 judging by his uniform. The card backs feature a gorgeous full-color photo of the team's stadium. (Yes, it's possible for a photo of the utilitarian, 1950s relic that was Memorial Stadium to be gorgeous.) My only regret is that there were but 30 of these cards featuring the Orioles, and that the set as a whole is only 300 cards. I wonder why Upper Deck didn't keep this set going in subsequent years. Was it a poor seller? Or did they have the rare sense not to overdo a good thing? Probably option A.

Davey Johnson, 1991 Crown/Coca-Cola All-Time Orioles #225

The voting results for the Baseball Writers' Association of America's Manager of the Year Awards (whew, what a mouthful!) will not be announced until mid-November. To tide us over until then, today The Sporting News revealed that O's manager Buck Showalter was their choice as the American League's top skipper. It's the seventh time an Oriole manager has taken home the award: Hank Bauer (1966) and Earl Weaver (1977 and 1979) won it back when TSN gave out one award for the entire major leagues, and Frank Robinson (1989), Johnny Oates (1993), and Davey Johnson (1997) all received recognition as the A.L.'s best manager after the award was split in two. Coincidentally, Johnson was the publication's choice for the top National League skipper in this just-concluded season. He was at the helm for the Nationals' 18-game improvement, which boosted the club to baseball's best regular-season record with 98 wins and 64 losses. Washington went on to lose to the Cardinals in the NLDS, dropping Game 5 in heartbreaking fashion after sprinting out to a 6-0 lead.

If the Nats' leap forward under Davey Johnson was impressive, the Birds' single-season turnaround with Buck at the helm was otherworldly. The 14 straight years of losing is a theme that's been hammered home endlessly, but just taking it down to a smaller scale we find a 2011 O's team that finished dead last in the A.L. East at 69-93. In 2012, Showalter's charges flipped that record, tacking on an extra 24 wins and jousting with the Yankees and Rays for the division crown until the very end of the season. They scraped into the playoffs as the second wild card, beat a favored Rangers team on the road, and took the Yankees to the absolute brink before being shut down by CC Sabathia in a 3-1 final in Game Five of the ALDS. But more impressive than what the Orioles did is how they did it: Buck and GM Dan Duquette played roster roulette all season long, threatening a decades-old team record by utilizing 52 players on the big league squad. As you may have surmised, they dealt with injuries and other hardships throughout the 162-game slate, playing for big chunks of time without key players such as Mark Reynolds, Brian Roberts, Nolan Reimold, Nick Markakis, Jim Thome, and Jason Hammel. Looking at the rotation, only rookie Wei-Yin Chen started more than 20 games. But the O's played their best ball in close and late situations, obliterating the major league record with a 29-9 record in one-run games and going 16-2 in extra innings (with each of the last 16 extra-innings contests resulting in a win). They won at home (47-34), they won on the road (46-35), and they even won the majority of their intra-division games (43-29 vs. their East rivals). The young and pitching-rich Nationals were expected to make noise, but the Cinderella Orioles truly came out of nowhere. No one may ever be able to quantify Buck Showalter's contributions to that success, but he certainly seems like a deserving choice for Manager of the Year. Congrats, Buck.

Vintage Fridays: Davey Johnson, 1967 Topps #363

Will he or won't he?

It seems like every time there's a managerial vacancy somewhere along the Beltway, Davey Johnson's name is on everyone's lips. It makes sense. He was a three-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove second baseman for the Orioles in his playing days, and started at the keystone for the O's clubs that won four pennants and two World Series in the six-year span from 1966 through 1971. In his 40s and 50s, he first led the Mets to a 1986 World Series win, then took the Reds from fifth place to back-to-back division crowns, and finally led his Baltimore clubs to back-to-back American League Championship Series. (Ohbytheway, we're fast approaching 30 years since the last world champion O's team. In those three decades, the only two Oriole clubs to reach the postseason were Davey's 1996-97 squads.) So sure, there's a lot of fondness for ol' Davey in Baltimore and even in D.C.

Yesterday, Nationals manager Jim Riggleman up and quit, despite the fact that his team was riding an 11-1 hot streak to put them over the .500 mark, a place Washington has never been at the end of a season. His contract only ran through the end of 2011, and he had grown frustrated by GM Mike Rizzo's refusal to discuss an extension. Bench coach John McLaren was appointed as interim skipper, but rumor has it that the Nats are looking to make another move by Monday. Davey Johnson is already in the front office as a special adviser to Rizzo, and of course he's receiving most of the buzz despite his age (68) and the fact that he hasn't managed in the majors since the Dodgers axed him in 2000. But hey, he's just a pup next to Jack McKeon.

Vintage Fridays: Davey Johnson, 1968 Topps #273

Yesterday I spoke of fluke home run seasons in the context of Jose Bautista's 50-homer outburst in 2010. Well, good ol' Joe Posnanski compiled a list of the 32 Flukiest Home Run Seasons, and the man above (Davey Johnson, not God) took home the prize as #1. That's not too surprising; Davey averaged nine home runs per year as an Oriole, peaked at 18 in 1971, and then hit 43 in 1973 in his first season with Atlanta. I'd say that some of his newfound (and fleeting) power was due to hitting in a lineup with Hank Aaron and Darrell Evans (who also topped 40 HR each that year), but most of the time he batted behind them, and you would think that Frank Robinson and Boog Powell would have rubbed off on him previously if power could be transferred by osmosis. The hitter-friendly "Launching Pad" of Atlanta's Fulton County Stadium is the most frequent explanation given for his surge, but even if you take out his 26 HR at home, he still hit 17 on the road. Sometimes a fluke is just a fluke.

That brings me to #2 on JoePoz's list, Brady Anderson. I was a witness to his wild 50-homer barrage in 1996, the year that the O's broke the major league record for home runs in a season with 257 total and had seven different players swat 20. (Eddie Murray added 10 after arriving from Cleveland in July; if Jeffrey Hammonds had eked out one more lousy homer, the Birds would've had a whole lineup in double digits!) It was great fun watching a player from my favorite team chase Roger Maris' record, which Brady did for the first few months: 11 HR at the end of April, 20 at the end of May, 30 at the All-Star Break. On a team with sluggers like Rafael Palmeiro, Chris Hoiles, and Bobby Bonilla, it seemed strange that Brady (with a previous career high of 21 in 1992) was the one reaching the seats most often, especially from the leadoff spot. But at 14 years old, I certainly wasn't asking questions, and neither were most fans and media members. It's only through the lens of the so-called "steroid era" and its aftermath that people have thrown around Brady's name in a snide, presumptuous manner.

There are several logical fallacies at work when someone accuses Brady Anderson of steroid abuse, and he's mentioned some of them himself. He was always a gym rat, as opposed to one of those guys who suddenly added several pounds of muscle during one off-season (see Barry Bonds or Ivan Rodriguez). Throughout the past five years of testimonies, leaked documents, and investigations, hundreds of major leaguers have been implicated in PED abuse, and not once has Brady been fingered. So if he was juicing, any witnesses and/or suppliers must have been a tight-lipped bunch. Finally, his home run totals in the "steroid era" go like this, starting from 1993 and going through his last full season (2001): 13, 12, 16, 50, 18, 18, 24, 19, 8. What gives? Did he only take steroids in 1996, hit 50 homers, get picked for the All-Star team and Home Run Derby, go to the playoffs for the first time, and then decide, "nope, this success and attention just isn't for me"? Or did the stuff just not work as well in every other year?

Sometimes a fluke is just a fluke.

Davey Johnson, 2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites #55

Davey Johnson, Hall of Famer? If you ask me, it seems like a long shot, but he is on the ballot. Next month, the re-re-re-revamped Veterans' Committee will choose from an assortment of managers, umpires, and executives for Cooperstown's Class of 2010. The former O's second baseman and skipper is one of eight retired managers on the ballot (the list is here, and includes fellow ex-Oriole Whitey Herzog).

There's little question that Davey was a solid, above-average player, but his on-field performance alone would not qualify him for enshrinement. He was a four-time All-Star who won three Gold Gloves and once hit 43 home runs in a season, but he also hit just .261 with a .340 on-base percentage in thirteen seasons. He didn't quite have the longevity or the larger-than-life numbers to put him over the top.

But I really did underestimate Johnson's successes as a manager. In 14 seasons (12 full and two partial), he won 1,148 games and lost 888. His .564 winning percentage ranks 13th among all managers with at least 1,000 games managed. The most eye-opening stat: in his 12 full seasons, his teams finished in first place five times, second place six times, and third once. I may have overlooked him because he won just one World Series, with the 1986 Mets. Of course, Earl Weaver also piloted a single world champion, and there's no question that he was pretty damn good. Maybe Davey gets shortchanged because he was never a fixture with any single team; he helmed the Mets, Reds, Orioles, and Dodgers, and his longest tenure was the six-and-a-quarter years he spent in New York. Nonetheless, he was a winner wherever he went.

Best of luck to Davey and the rest of the candidates!

Vintage Fridays: Davey Johnson, 1969 Topps #203

I really dig these cards from the first few years of Davey Johnson's career. He never had matinee idol looks, to put it mildly, but there was some kind of burning intensity in his face. This card especially captures the wide-eyed look that seems equal parts fear and determination, along with the buck teeth protruding in a sort of snarl. He is awash in anticipation of whatever may come his way, and if it's a line drive or a bad-hop grounder, all the better. The unique looking-up camera angle adds to the intrigue, as Davey's outstretched right palm and impossibly large left-hand second baseman's glove seem to be reaching straight out of the card to grab you. Davey's ready; are you?

Vintage Fridays: Orioles Celebrate - Sweep Twins in Three!, 1970 Topps #202

I need a reminder of the good times tonight, an era when October in Baltimore meant a trip down to 33rd Street to see the O's dominate the opposition. This card depicts a mob scene at home plate during the first-ever American League Championship Series, during which the 109-win Orioles squeaked out a couple of walk-off wins over the Western Division Champion Twins before cruising in the deciding Game Three.

The sharp-eyed Birdbrain could tell you that the players who are visible in the above photo are, from left to right, Frank Robinson, Paul Blair, Andy Etchebarren, and Davey Johnson. I'm not sure whether they're reveling in the glory of Game One or Game Two, but both were incredible. In the opener, the host Orioles trailed 3-2 before Boog Powell led off with a game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth and Brooks Robinson singled, chasing Minnesota starter Jim Perry. A couple errors and a fielder's choice moved Brooks to third, but he was caught stealing home to end the inning! The game ground its way into the twelfth, where Baltimore's Dick Hall inherited a bases-loaded jam from Marcelino Lopez and retired the next two Twin batters to keep it knotted at 3-3. In the bottom of the inning, the Birds finally broke through against Ron Perranoski, who had been on the mound since the ninth. Mark Belanger singled, moved to third on two infield outs, and scored the winning run on a daring bunt single by Paul Blair. It was a rare example of small ball by the czar of the three-run homer, manager Earl Weaver.

Game Two was a breathtaking pitchers' duel. The Orioles' Dave McNally and the Twins' Dave Boswell, a pair of 20-game winners in the regular season, each allowed their share of baserunners: 3 hits and 5 walks for McNally, and 7 and 7 for Boswell. They both did their job in the runs column, however, trading zeroes into the eleventh inning. McNally, who had the stronger line of the two (particularly when you compare his 11 strikeouts to his opponent's 4 K's), stranded two Twinkie runners in the top of the frame. Boswell finally let up, walking Boog Powell and Davey Johnson (the latter intentionally) and turning things over to (who else?) Ron Perranoski. The reliever once again played the goat, yielding a two-out pinch single to Curt Motton to bring home Powell with the game's only run. Utterly demoralized, Minny would scratch across just 2 runs on 10 hits against Jim Palmer in the final game of the series. Baltimore had no such difficulty, with 11 runs to show for their 18 hits off of 7 Twin hurlers.

As you can see, the Orioles had a right to celebrate. I think things got a little gloomier in the World Series, but my computer seems to lock up when I try to research it, so we'll just stop here. ;)

Davey Johnson, 2008 Topps 50th Anniversary All-Star Rookies #AR10

To start on a positive note, the fact that this year's Orioles team didn't hit a true rough patch until May is commendable. With that said, it's not a whole lot of fun watching any team lose, especially the way this West Coast road trip has gone. The pitching has more than held up its end of the bargain, with Brian Burres coming from near nowhere to serve as a dependable fifth starter, Daniel Cabrera putting together five straight quality starts for the first time in memory, and Garrett Olson making a strong return from Norfolk. We've finally got some guys who can throw the ball, but they're getting no support from a bare-bones offense. The Birds just got swept in excruciating fashion, losing two games in the tenth inning, and a third by just two runs. As the hitters continue to struggle, they start pushing and making stupid mistakes elsewhere - on the basepaths and in the field.

So here comes Davey Johnson as a slumpbuster. He may not be a blow-up doll, but he was a valuable member of Baltimore's first-ever World Series Champs in his rookie season. He played in four Fall Classics in his seven full seasons here, and returned as a manager in 1996 to deliver the O's to the postseason for the first time since 1983. After a wire-to-wire American League East Championship run in 1997 ended in disappointment with an ALCS loss to Cleveland, the reigning Manager of the Year was forced out by owner Peter Angelos in a power struggle. The rest is history, a history checkered with losses.

Davey Johnson has always been a winner, both on the field and in the dugout. If he can't snap us out of this mini-skid, then I just don't know who can.