Some quick thoughts about Davey Johnson.
If you’re of a certain age you first started hearing about Manager Davey Johnson in 1983 (you’d later learn he was a pretty good baseball player who made the last out of the 1969 World Series).
There were articles about how he was using Computers(!) to figure out whatever he was figuring out.
When he showed up in Queens in 1984 the team had a spark. We waited most of the summer for that inevitable fade, and it really never came, even though the Cubs annoyingly picked that same summer to be good.
I think my favorite thing about Davey was the cowboy lineups. Let’s play Kevin Mitchell at Shortstop….sure why not? Man that was fun.
In following years I enjoyed his feisty discussions with The Young Howie Rose (and man I increasingly miss The Young Howie Rose) on Mets Extra which was a must listen in the days before internet (and in the days of half the Mets games being on Cable TV when Cable TV wasn’t even a thing you could get in Queens….really.)
Eventually the media sharks started to turn on Davey and he was let go and really Queens has never been the same.
Give Davey Johnson three Wild Cards as a safety net and there’s a good chance the Mets have banners from 1985 and 1987 on the fence.
It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?