LOVERRO: Intelligence, confidence, guts made Davey Johnson irreplaceable

OPINION:

The last time I talked to Davey Johnson, it was when his former Baltimore Orioles teammate, legendary third baseman, Brooks Robinson, passed away two years ago.

“We were like a big family,” Johnson said. “There’s not many of us left.”

There were four members of that Orioles family at the time. 

Now there are three — Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, first baseman Boog Powell and outfielder Don Buford — from those great Baltimore teams that won four American League pennants and two World Series.

Johnson has joined his beloved teammate Brooks. The former Orioles All-Star second baseman and two-time Manager of the Year died last week at the age of 82.

He will not be replaced. Today’s game has no room for the level of intelligence, confidence and guts that Johnson fearlessly displayed.

That’s the best description of Johnson — fearless.

“He was the most innovative, futuristic manager I ever worked with,” said Hall of Fame general manager Pat Gillick, who was Johnson’s minor league teammate in the Orioles organization and later worked with Johnson as the general manager in Baltimore in 1996 and 1997. “He was a very forward thinker and always very secure in his position. I don’t think he ever felt threatened. He always had confidence.”

This is why Johnson worked for five different teams over his managing career — the New York Mets, the Cincinnati Reds, the Orioles, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Washington Nationals from mid-2011 to 2013. He won the World Series in New York in 1986, took the Orioles to two American League Championship Series and both the Reds and the Nationals made the postseason with Johnson in the dugout, with Washington winning the National League East division in 2012.

He was smarter than nearly everyone around him — including most of his bosses. Combine that with his fearlessness, and he wore out his welcome often. As Gillick said, he never felt threatened.

He was a math major at Trinity University and, while playing second base for the Orioles from 1965 to 1972, used the computers at nearby Johns Hopkins to come up with statistical simulations and how it would affect player performances — today known as analytics, decades before they became standard procedure in baseball front offices.

You would think that someone like Johnson would have thrived in today’s numbers-driven game. Yet he never thought the data replaced his baseball knowledge and instincts. He never needed any tools for crutches. 

If any of the pocket-protector general managers of today were to tell Johnson how to make up his lineup, he would have told them to take their slide rule and … well, you know.

Johnson was too smart for the game then and too confident for the game now. He had the credentials — 1,372-1,071, a .562 winning percentage, the sixth highest among managers with at least 1,300 wins — to back up his confidence.

His knowledge went beyond numbers. 

Johnson was a four-time All-Star second baseman and a three-time Gold Glove winner. In 13 major league seasons, Johnson batted .261 with 136 home runs and 609 RBI. He was traded to the Atlanta Braves in 1972 and would set a record for second basemen with 43 home runs with the Braves. He would also go on to play two seasons in Japan.     

Johnson understood players. He was the first manager I ever heard use the phrase “express their talent” talking about players.    

“He believed in his players,” Darryl Strawberry, the right fielder for the Mets under Johnson, told ESPN. “He believed in us. He was one of us. He believed in every last one of us … He would never throw you under the bus … We all loved him.”

Johnson had a reputation as the best bullpen manager of his time. “He knew when they needed rest and was very good at picking the right pitcher for the right spot,” Gillick said. “He had the confidence of pitchers.”  

There were many moments that illustrate the essence of Johnson. My favorite was Game 1 of the 1997 American League Division Series against the Seattle Mariners, facing Randy Johnson in the Kingdome.

Johnson benched three of his best hitters — Rafael Palmeiro, B.J. Surhoff and Roberto Alomar — all left-handers who had struggled against Randy Johnson. Instead, Johnson used backups — Jerome Walton for Palmeiro at first, Jeff Reboulet for Alomar at second and Jeffrey Hammonds for Surhoff in right field. 

That is benching 72 home runs and 258 RBIs in favor of 28 home runs and 91 RBIs. Palmeiro alone (38 home runs, 110 RBIs) had better numbers than the trio.      

It was unsettling, no matter what the numbers showed, to see their best hitters benched for a playoff game. 

But it worked. 

Hammonds walked twice and scored twice. Reboulet delivered a key two-strike sacrifice bunt that put the runners in scoring position for Eric Davis’s two-run single that gave the Orioles a 4-1 lead. Walton went hitless in two at-bats, but the overall idea worked. 

Randy Johnson left the game after just five innings, having thrown 100 pitches, giving up five runs on seven hits and four walks as Baltimore won 9-3.    

“I’ll bet no one in history has ever started a playoff series by sitting down their leading home run hitter and RBI guy,” Gillick said after the game. “But it’s the logical thing to do.”

Here’s what Johnson said: “That’s why they pay me the big money to make these kinds of decisions. If it doesn’t work, then I’ll take the fall.”

Fearless.

He was a remarkable guy. Johnson was a scratch golfer. He had his pilot’s license. But in his heart and mind, he was a baseball man, one of the smartest the game has seen.

• Catch Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.