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Davey Johnson: My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond
Davey Johnson is best known for managing the New York Mets, Cincinnati Reds, and Baltimore Orioles—and taking all three clubs to their respective league championship series during his time at the helm. When teams needed to improve, they hired Johnson, and he delivered, memorably leading the Mets to the 1986 World Series title. Yet even as he raised the bar of their success, all three clubs parted ways with Johnson, a pattern that puzzles him to this day. A self-termed "army brat," Johnson kept moving, managing the Los Angeles Dodgers then the Washington Nationals before announcing his retirement in 2013. But managing baseball has been just one part of Johnson's fascinating life. A true Renaissance man, Johnson has also found incredible success as a land investor, pilot, scratch golfer, scuba diving teacher, and mathematician, pioneering the use of sabermetrics in the big leagues. Now, Johnson finally takes the time to meditate on his wild and remarkable journey, with reflections on not only his All-Star playing days and years of managerial success in New York, Cincinnati, and Baltimore, but on his entire career.
400 pages, Hardcover
Published May 15, 2018
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 14, 2018
Having found success as both a player and a manager, it is no surprise that Davey Johnson wanted to share his baseball experiences in a memoir. What was surprising about this book written with Erik Sherman is that Johnson was using sabermetrics long before computers were used widely, before Bill James published his books and well before the current use of advanced statistics done by every team today.
That is only one of the several surprises in store for the reader of this book. Johnson states in the book that when he was playing second base for the Baltimore Orioles, he created a report of all possible lineups for the Orioles in 1969, writing punch cards and inputting data from the 1968 season. Johnson did this for a computer class he was taking at Johns Hopkins university. This would certainly aid him later on when he became a manager.
Here’s another surprise in the book, at least for me. While Johnson isn’t unique in his belief that the best managers are those who “handle the bullpen and the bench because that’s the deal”, this statement took me by surprise because every team he managed, from the Mets during their championship season in 1986 to the Reds and Orioles in the mid 1990’s and later the Washington Nationals, his teams usually had stronger starting pitching and were loaded with offensive stars. Knowing that he felt that managing the bench and bullpen made the difference took me by surprise, even though it makes sense.
One other surprise, again at least to this reader although some others may already know this, was Johnson’s viewpoint that some of the rule changes or proposals such as instant reply challenges, robots calling balls and strikes, or the new rules for sliding into second base, are bad for the game. He believes that these make the sport “not even the game of baseball anymore. It’s terrible.” Johnson is far from the only baseball person who believes this, but it was information I learned from this book.
There are many other tidbits of information throughout the book that may be new to readers. Some are serious, some are humorous, but all of them contribute to the overall picture Johnson wants to paint of his time in baseball. One of them that I have never heard before was that Hall of Fame Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer had the nickname “Cakes” given to him by Orioles teammates because he always ate pancakes on the days he pitched. Of course, Johnson added that “Cakes” also got under the skin of teammates as well, something that wasn’t as obscure as the nickname.
The part of his career that gets the most pages in the book is his time managing the New York Mets and their 1986 championship season. This part was another viewpoint of that team and some of the incidents and highlights of that team and that year. I found his reflections on the seasons AFTER 1986 and the actions of the Mets front office more interesting, especially when a popular topic that is still talked about today is why that team didn’t win more titles.
This isn’t to say that the rest of Johnson’s career, both as a player and as a manger, isn’t discussed thoroughly – in fact, I enjoyed his discussion about his playing days with the Orioles and the Atlanta Braves the most interesting. It is often forgotten that he set the record for most home runs by a second baseman when he was playing with the Braves in 1973. He also talks about the night Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record, as he was the hitter in the hole when Aaron hit the historic blast.
While this baseball memoir does read like many others, it was a good read for me as it was full of information about Johnson that I did not know, especially when the topics were when he was managing teams other than the Mets. I would recommend this book for most baseball fans as there is a lot of ground covered and it is sprinkled with humor throughout.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
That is only one of the several surprises in store for the reader of this book. Johnson states in the book that when he was playing second base for the Baltimore Orioles, he created a report of all possible lineups for the Orioles in 1969, writing punch cards and inputting data from the 1968 season. Johnson did this for a computer class he was taking at Johns Hopkins university. This would certainly aid him later on when he became a manager.
Here’s another surprise in the book, at least for me. While Johnson isn’t unique in his belief that the best managers are those who “handle the bullpen and the bench because that’s the deal”, this statement took me by surprise because every team he managed, from the Mets during their championship season in 1986 to the Reds and Orioles in the mid 1990’s and later the Washington Nationals, his teams usually had stronger starting pitching and were loaded with offensive stars. Knowing that he felt that managing the bench and bullpen made the difference took me by surprise, even though it makes sense.
One other surprise, again at least to this reader although some others may already know this, was Johnson’s viewpoint that some of the rule changes or proposals such as instant reply challenges, robots calling balls and strikes, or the new rules for sliding into second base, are bad for the game. He believes that these make the sport “not even the game of baseball anymore. It’s terrible.” Johnson is far from the only baseball person who believes this, but it was information I learned from this book.
There are many other tidbits of information throughout the book that may be new to readers. Some are serious, some are humorous, but all of them contribute to the overall picture Johnson wants to paint of his time in baseball. One of them that I have never heard before was that Hall of Fame Orioles pitcher Jim Palmer had the nickname “Cakes” given to him by Orioles teammates because he always ate pancakes on the days he pitched. Of course, Johnson added that “Cakes” also got under the skin of teammates as well, something that wasn’t as obscure as the nickname.
The part of his career that gets the most pages in the book is his time managing the New York Mets and their 1986 championship season. This part was another viewpoint of that team and some of the incidents and highlights of that team and that year. I found his reflections on the seasons AFTER 1986 and the actions of the Mets front office more interesting, especially when a popular topic that is still talked about today is why that team didn’t win more titles.
This isn’t to say that the rest of Johnson’s career, both as a player and as a manger, isn’t discussed thoroughly – in fact, I enjoyed his discussion about his playing days with the Orioles and the Atlanta Braves the most interesting. It is often forgotten that he set the record for most home runs by a second baseman when he was playing with the Braves in 1973. He also talks about the night Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record, as he was the hitter in the hole when Aaron hit the historic blast.
While this baseball memoir does read like many others, it was a good read for me as it was full of information about Johnson that I did not know, especially when the topics were when he was managing teams other than the Mets. I would recommend this book for most baseball fans as there is a lot of ground covered and it is sprinkled with humor throughout.
https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...
June 4, 2018
I had high hopes for this book from some of the advanced press. I had only known of Johnson as fiery manager of some very good Mets, Reds and Nationals teams but was really interested to learn that he was a math major, real estate investor, scratch golfer, small-plane pilot and scuba instructor.
The first part of the book about his playing career was really tough to handle. He certainly prides himself on his confidence and ego, but it came off so strong as to be overwhelming and had no problem complimenting himself and bashing everyone else.
The chapters on his managing career was much more interesting since he spent a lot more time talking about moments in the careers of the players he managed. The section on the mid-80's Mets was really cool and I could have read more about that era.
Overall, though, I was really underwhelmed by the lack of personal info throughout the book. He never once mentioned scuba diving and only briefly touched on flying and his real estate investing. He didn't even mention anything about his family life until the end of the book when he inexplicably dove into his second marriage and challenges with a developmentally-challenged stepson. I hate to say it, but it almost seemed included because he wanted to illustrate how kind and thoughtful he was to the boy.
I was really excited for this book and had a lot of questions about how he managed his real estate portfolio throughout his career and how he had time to become a scuba instructor, but sadly this book answered none of those questions.
The first part of the book about his playing career was really tough to handle. He certainly prides himself on his confidence and ego, but it came off so strong as to be overwhelming and had no problem complimenting himself and bashing everyone else.
The chapters on his managing career was much more interesting since he spent a lot more time talking about moments in the careers of the players he managed. The section on the mid-80's Mets was really cool and I could have read more about that era.
Overall, though, I was really underwhelmed by the lack of personal info throughout the book. He never once mentioned scuba diving and only briefly touched on flying and his real estate investing. He didn't even mention anything about his family life until the end of the book when he inexplicably dove into his second marriage and challenges with a developmentally-challenged stepson. I hate to say it, but it almost seemed included because he wanted to illustrate how kind and thoughtful he was to the boy.
I was really excited for this book and had a lot of questions about how he managed his real estate portfolio throughout his career and how he had time to become a scuba instructor, but sadly this book answered none of those questions.
October 8, 2018
As a life-long Mets fan, I enjoy books about the Mets and baseball in general. Davey Johnson has been one of the better managers the Mets have had. From this anecdote filled book we learn that Davey was not only a good ballplayer with the Orioles and Braves, but was an early believer in analytics (1960's!). We also see the roots of his managerial style. Add in stories from his personal life and we see a complete overview of Davey Johnson's life.
This book is a quick read and strictly for baseball fans. My only disappointment is that there could have been so much more. This book was just an outline.
This book is a quick read and strictly for baseball fans. My only disappointment is that there could have been so much more. This book was just an outline.
December 11, 2018
Vaguely interesting. As it turns out, Davey really likes to take credit for nearly every single good thing that happened to his teams and good players. Conversely, everything that went wrong was someone else's fault. All in all, Davey Johnson comes off as kind of an asshole.
August 23, 2020
Biographies always fascinated me, so when I saw this one I knew I had to read it. I’m a baseball fan, and I’m a Baltimorean so reading about a player on our best Orioles teams ever from 66-72 then managing the orioles as one of the best managers ever was a plus, the book is exactly what I hoped for. A quick read where Johnson covers his entire stellar career in an interesting way, and we also get some tragedies that occurred in his life later on, while he sometimes seems to over inflate how great he was, his numbers don’t lie so sometimes you just have to move past it. A good read for fans of baseball.
June 8, 2018
Incredibly disappointing
Growing up a Mets fan, but being a general baseball fan, I was very much looking forward to this book, but wow, was that excitement misguided. This is not a book or a memoir so much as it is a collection of poorly-written game recaps and shoe-horned blurbs that don’t even come close to anything befitting such an extraordinary baseball life. Wouldn’t recommend to even the hardest of the diehards.
Growing up a Mets fan, but being a general baseball fan, I was very much looking forward to this book, but wow, was that excitement misguided. This is not a book or a memoir so much as it is a collection of poorly-written game recaps and shoe-horned blurbs that don’t even come close to anything befitting such an extraordinary baseball life. Wouldn’t recommend to even the hardest of the diehards.
February 23, 2021
Enjoyable, quick reading baseball book. Davey covered a lot of ground - withe Oriole dynasty of the late 60s/early 70s; in the same lineup with Hank Aaron; one of the first Americans to play in the Japanese professional league, on the same team with Sadaharu Oh; and manager for the '86 World Champion Mets, Reds, Dodgers and Nationals.
September 7, 2018
Some good remembrances and gossip, but man is this guy arrogant. It seems every trade involving one of his teams that went bad he said it would, but all the good ones of course he endorsed. Still entertaining look at baseball life.
January 27, 2019
Davey Johnson is as honest and straightforward as anyone. This book is full of colorful anecdotes and observations. It was interesting to learn how he didn't privately support the shutdown of Stephen Strasburg in 2012, though he went along with it publicly.
August 14, 2018
8/14/2018 4 stars library ebook edition-interesting behind the scenes spanning Davey Johnson's early days until his retirement
February 19, 2019
Some great baseball stories, written well enough. Worth the read if you love the play by plays and behind the scenes of some iconic games throughout Davey Johnson's career.
December 31, 2023
too bad
Wow wow. Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow sow too wow cow cow tow wow wow wow wow how cow
Wow wow. Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow sow too wow cow cow tow wow wow wow wow how cow
June 16, 2025
A interesting look at Davey 's life.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews