Johnson envisions victory at Classic by means of lessons learned

The Davey Johnson managing style on display for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic is an amalgam of his playing experiences, his own managers and his own dugout style that promoted upward trends at the majority of his four big-league managerial stops.

"The manager you become is a compilation of all the managers you play for-you pick up the things you like that they did," said Johnson, once the young manager of the New York Mets at 41, now the grizzled veteran at 66.

He's not as crusty as the most influential skipper for whom he toiled in Baltimore-Earl Weaver.

"In Earl's case, there were a lot of things I liked," Johnson said. "He was very competitive, intensely competitive....He handled pitchers as well as anyone. He had lefties and righties balanced. He controlled the staff. But Earl was very weak on young players...."

Johnson also learned from Whitey Herzog amid the heated Mets-Cardinals battles of the 1980s.

"I was good friends with Whitey," he said. "He was big on controlling match-ups and exploiting weaknesses. He'd bring in lefties to pitch to Howard Johnson and Wally Backman-they couldn't hit lefties. Meanwhile, Herzog wanted a team with all switch-hitters so you couldn't do the same to him."

From the first day of his managing career, Johnson said, "You are what you are." He hopes to emulate on a short-term basis for Team USA the uplifting direction he gave to his first three big-league teams.

Johnson caught the New York Mets on an upswing and led them to a comeback World Series triumph against the Boston Red Sox in 1986. Moving on to the Cincinnati Reds, he crafted a National League Central title in the immediate post-strike days of 1995. The next two years, Johnson guided the Baltimore Orioles to their last two postseason appearances. Only his two seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers failed to produce a playoff appearance among all his stops.

The three-time Gold Glove second baseman and one of a troika of 40-homer producers for the 1973 Braves, Johnson moved to Team USA in 2005. The team finished seventh in an 18-team field in the 2005 Baseball World Cup in the Netherlands.  A year later, Johnson was bench coach for Team USA in the first World Baseball Classic. Two years later, he managed the USA Team in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Assembling this spring's WBC roster is much easier than his earlier Team USA experiences.

"The process of putting the team together before was all minor leaguers," Johnson said. "Now there's a whole bunch of teams to draw from. The process is much more simplified when you're dealing with 30 major-league clubs. They're household names, so it's much easier to put a USA team together."

The original 45 players who expressed interest in playing will be pared down to a 28-man final roster. A minimum of 13 pitchers must be carried, and Johnson indeed will employ that number.

"We'll have some really quality relievers," Johnson said.

The New York Yankees' Derek Jeter is Johnson's stalwart, jumping aboard the WBC team at the same time as Johnson. He cited Jeter as an example of how a manager fosters good chemistry, the oft-used description of emotional and physical cohesiveness in today's game.

"A Jeter probably knows he should hit second, but if you hit him seventh or ninth he might be unhappy," Johnson said. "What chemistry is on a ball club is when the manager puts players in the proper batting order, properly positions the pitchers and uses the bench in [the] way it should be used."

Team USA must compete against 15 other countries that will feature scores of major leaguers in the intense competition lasting March 5-23. When Johnson recalls the frantic nature of his postseason managing experiences, he can apply them directly to the déjà vu atmosphere of the WBC.

Story courtesy Red Line Editorial, Inc. George Castle is a freelance contributor for teamusa.org. This story was not subject to the approval of the United States Olympic Committee or any National Governing Bodies.