Final act with Nats allowed Johnson's career to come full circle

Davey Johnson didn’t need to manage the Nationals. He had already enjoyed as full and successful a baseball career as anyone could have wanted by the time Mike Rizzo called him up in June 2011 with an unexpected offer to come back to the dugout.

A four-time All-Star second baseman and two-time World Series champion with the Orioles. A record-setting home run hitter in a Braves lineup that also included Hank Aaron. Another World Series title as manager of the powerhouse 1986 Mets. Division titles as manager of the Reds and Orioles, not to mention 1997 American League Manager of Year honors. A bronze medal with Team USA at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, then a semifinal appearance in the first World Baseball Classic the following year.

Johnson was 68, having survived multiple health scares including heart surgery and a ruptured appendix that nearly ended his life. He had dealt with the personal tragedy of losing a daughter and a stepson at young ages. Why did he need to accept Rizzo’s offer to take over the Nats’ job in midseason following Jim Riggleman’s surprise resignation following a walk-off win?

“It was not a tough decision for me to step in,” he said on June 27, 2011, in a press conference room in Anaheim prior to his first game back. “It’s really exciting to even have a chance to compete.”

This was an opportunity Johnson neither sought nor expected. But when it was presented to him, he jumped at the opportunity because he loved any chance he got to turn a ballclub into a winner.

Johnson, who died Friday night at 82, indeed helped turn the Nationals into a winner. Just as he did with the Mets in the ’80s, the Reds and Orioles in the ’90s and even the Dodgers after that, he raised the bar in D.C. like no one else who has held that job over the last two decades did.

When Johnson took the job, the Nats had never enjoyed a winning season since arriving in 2005 from Montreal. Within a year, he was part of the team’s first champagne celebration after clinching its first NL East championship. He helped turn an 80-win team in 2011 into a 98-win juggernaut in 2012.

Everywhere he went, Johnson made his teams better. That was true as a player. It was certainly true as a manager.

It’s easy to gloss over right now just how chaotic a situation Johnson was thrown into with the Nationals. Riggleman’s resignation stunned everyone, and Rizzo was left scrambling to find a replacement. Bench coach John McLaren agreed to take over on an interim basis, but he had no desire to finish out the season because he was Riggleman’s confidant and indeed left altogether in support of his friend once Johnson took over three days later.

The 2011 Nationals had talent, but they were still somewhat directionless at that time. Enter Johnson, who immediately commanded the respect of the clubhouse like nobody else could have under those circumstances. He greeted the team at the airport in Chicago following their weekend series against the White Sox, shaking everyone’s hands as they boarded the charter flight to Anaheim, a soothing presence after 72 hours of insanity.

Now consider the group that assembled the following spring in Viera. It included an established veteran leader in Jayson Werth, plus a homegrown star in Ryan Zimmerman. There were impressive young position players like Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa and Wilson Ramos. There was a supremely talented – but inexperienced – rotation anchored by Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez. And there was the Next Big Thing: 19-year-old Bryce Harper, who wouldn’t make the Opening Day roster but did make his major league debut before the calendar turned to May and went on to win National League Rookie of the Year honors.

Johnson’s reputation as a brilliant X’s and O’s manager was well known. He had a degree in mathematics and cared about lineup optimization and on-base percentage long before many others in baseball caught on. His bullpen management was second to none, and he rarely made a move that prompted significant second-guessing.

But Johnson was just as good at managing personalities in the clubhouse as he was at making double-switches on the field. He knew how to appease players of all stripes and experience levels and backgrounds. And he did so by encouraging every one of them to just be themselves. Harper was allowed to be a brash, 19-year-old phenom. Strasburg was allowed to be the spotlight-avoiding ace. Werth was allowed to lay down the law if needed.

You hear about so-called “players’ managers” and you hear about great tacticians. Only a select few excel in both regards, and Johnson absolutely did.

He could spend an hour dissecting someone’s swing or explaining how he goaded an opposing manager into a more favorable batter-pitcher matchup for himself. And then he could call out a reporter’s name from across the clubhouse and upon getting his eye contact proceed to drop his pants and moon him with a wide grin across his face.

Johnson was this guy everywhere he played and managed. He was teammates with icons like Aaron and Frank Robinson and Brooks Robinson and even Sadaharu Oh. He managed the likes of Darryl Strawberry and Deion Sanders and Cal Ripken Jr. and Bryce Harper.

And for 2 1/2 seasons, he helped turn the Nationals from an also-ran in the NL East into a star-studded franchise that would win four division titles and ultimately a World Series crown. No, he wasn’t around anymore in October 2019, but his fingerprints absolutely were still visible in the organization.

That’s why he accepted Rizzo’s offer to manage them after more than a decade away from the dugout. Well, that and because he also had a special personal connection.

You see, as a young kid growing up in Orlando, Johnson was a bat boy for the major league franchise that held spring training at nearby Tinker Field: the Washington Senators. How could that kid have possibly known he’d one day manage a different major league franchise from D.C. to cap off a remarkable career that rivals any other in baseball history?

“I love the organization,” he said on his final day as manager in 2013. “I’m finishing up with the city that made me love big league baseball: the Senators. My life has come full circle.”