David Allen Johnson (January 30, 1943 – September 5, 2025) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played as a second baseman from through , most notably in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the Baltimore Orioles dynasty which won four American League pennants and two World Series championships between 1966 and 1971. Johnson played in MLB from 1965 to 1975, then played for two seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB) before returning to play in MLB with the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs from 1977 to 1978. A three-time Rawlings Gold Glove Award winner, he was selected to four All-Star Game teams during his playing career.
A mathematics major at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, Johnson was among the first Major League managers to apply computer-based statistical analysis to decision-making, an approach which later became known as sabermetrics.
After retiring as a player, Johnson became a successful manager. He led the New York Mets to the 1986 World Series title, and to an additional National League East title in 1988. He won the American League's Manager of the Year Award in 1997, when he led the Baltimore Orioles wire-to-wire to the American League East division championship. He won the same award in the National League in 2012, when he led the Washington Nationals to the franchise's first division title since they moved to Washington, D.C., and its first overall since 1981. Johnson managed teams to their respective League Championship Series in three consecutive years – the Cincinnati Reds in 1995 and the Orioles in both 1996 and 1997. He also briefly managed the Los Angeles Dodgers. He led the United States national team at the 2009 World Baseball Classic, earning fourth place.
Playing career
After one season playing baseball at Texas A&M University in College Station, Johnson signed with the Baltimore Orioles as an amateur free agent in 1962. He had been scouted by the Orioles’ Jim Russo. Johnson was then assigned to the Stockton Ports in the Class C California League where he hit .309 with 10 home runs and 63 runs batted in (RBIs) in 97 games. Promoted to the AA Elmira Pioneers in 1963, he hit .326 in 63 games before advancing to the AAA Rochester Red Wings for the final 63 games of the season. Returning to the Red Wings for the entire 1964 season, Johnson had 19 home runs, 73 RBIs, and 87 runs.
In 1965, Johnson made the Orioles' team after spring training, but after hitting only .170 in 20 games he spent the latter part of the season with the Red Wings, batting .301 in 52 games. Back with the Orioles in 1966, Johnson took the starting second baseman job from Jerry Adair, which led to the Orioles trading Adair to the Chicago White Sox on June 13. Johnson then hit for a .257 batting average, seven home runs and 56 RBIs to finish third in American League Rookie of the Year balloting for 1966. Johnson was a full-time starter in the major leagues for the next eight seasons, averaging over 142 games played in a season.
Johnson reached the World Series with the Orioles in , , , and , winning World Series rings in 1966 and 1970. He also won the AL Gold Glove Award the final three seasons. Orioles shortstop Mark Belanger won the award as well in 1969 and 1971, making them one of the few middle infield duos to have won the honor in the same season. Third baseman Brooks Robinson also was in the middle of his record 16 straight Gold Glove streak when Johnson and Belanger won their awards.
Upset after being replaced as the starting second baseman by Bobby Grich, and with the Orioles in need of a power-hitting catcher, Johnson was traded along with Pat Dobson, Johnny Oates, and Roric Harrison to the Atlanta Braves for Earl Williams and Taylor Duncan on the last day of the Winter Meetings on December 1, 1972. The following season with the Braves, Johnson hit 40 home runs for the first and only time in his career, tying Rogers Hornsby's record for most single-season home runs by a second baseman with 42, and hitting a 43rd as a pinch-hitter. Johnson's second-highest home run total was 18, in the 1971 season. Four games into the 1975 season and after getting a hit in his only at bat, Johnson was released by the Braves.
Johnson then signed with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan's Central League, with whom he played in both the 1975 and 1976 seasons. Johnson was the Giants' first foreign player of note in more than 15 years, and faced a lot of pressure to perform in Japan. He struggled in his first season, battling injuries, and incurred the wrath of the Giants' manager (and former Hall of Fame player) Shigeo Nagashima. Despite playing much better in 1976, Johnson was not invited back by the Giants, who also reportedly prevented him from signing with any other NPB teams.
In 1977, Johnson returned to the United States, signing as a free agent with the Philadelphia Phillies. As a utility infielder, Johnson hit .321 with eight home runs in 78 games and played in one game in the Phillies' National League Championship Series loss to the Dodgers. (Four other players, Mike Ivie (1978), Darryl Strawberry (1998), Ben Broussard (2004), and Brooks Conrad (2010), subsequently matched Johnson's feat.) Shortly afterwards, Philadelphia dealt him to the Chicago Cubs, with whom he played the final 24 games of his career before retiring at the end of the 1978 season. In 1981, Johnson was hired to manage the New York Mets Double-A team, the Jackson Mets, leading the team to a 68–66 record in his only season with the team. In 1983, Johnson was named as the manager of the Mets Triple-A Tidewater Tides, which finished with a 71–68 record.
New York Mets
thumb|Johnson during spring training in [[St. Petersburg, Florida, February 1986]]
Johnson took over the Mets in 1984, a team that had not won a pennant since 1973. He became the first National League manager to win at least 90 games in each of his first five seasons. The highlight of his time with the Mets was winning the 1986 World Series against the Boston Red Sox. The 1983 team had won 68 games, but talent was showing for a potential winner with rookie Darryl Strawberry. A trade to acquire Keith Hernandez and Johnson's decision to suggest bringing up Dwight Gooden helped turn them into a winner of 90 games for the 1984 season. Gary Carter was acquired before that year, and the Mets won 98 games the next year, but it was only good enough for another second-place finish (three games behind St. Louis). The 1986 team won 108 games, which was the best in the majors. It was only the second time the Mets won 100 games in a season, with the other time being 1969.
The Mets won 92 games the following season, but they fell three games short of matching St. Louis. The next year, they won 100 games to win the division. The NLCS ended with a seven-game loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, which turned on a loss in Game 4 after winning two of the first three games.
Johnson had a bitter feud with general manager Frank Cashen. When the Mets struggled early in the 1990 season, starting the season 20–22, Johnson was fired. He finished with a record of 595 wins and 417 losses in the regular season and 11 wins and nine losses in the postseason. He is the winningest manager in Mets history and was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame with Cashen, Strawberry, and Gooden on August 1, 2010.
Cincinnati Reds
After more than two seasons out of baseball, the Cincinnati Reds hired Johnson 44 games into the 1993 season. As was the case with the Mets, Johnson revived the Reds almost immediately. He led the team to the National League Central lead at the time of the 1994 players' strike and won the first official NL Central title in 1995. However, early in the 1995 season, Reds owner Marge Schott announced Johnson would not return in 1996, regardless of how the Reds did. Schott named former Reds third baseman Ray Knight, who had played for Johnson on the Mets championship team, as bench coach, with the understanding that he would take over as manager in 1996.
Johnson and Schott had never gotten along, and relations had deteriorated to the point that he had nearly been fired after the 1994 season. According to Johnson, Schott would even send notes to him that were addressed to him by her St. Bernard. By most accounts, the final straw came because Schott did not approve of Johnson living with his fiancée Susan before they were married (the two met in 1993 and married a year later). According to The Washington Post, Schott had decided before the 1995 season even started that it would be Johnson's last one in Cincinnati. The Reds defeated the Dodgers in the NLDS and reached the NLCS in Johnson's last season as the Reds' manager, being swept by the eventual World Series champion Atlanta Braves. Johnson finished with a record of 204 wins and 172 losses in the regular season and three wins and four losses in the post-season. Johnson was prepared to admit he had made an error in judgment regarding the fine, but Angelos demanded Johnson admit he had acted recklessly in not leaving the decision to him. Presumably, such an admission would have given Angelos grounds to fire Johnson for cause. Johnson refused to do so. Johnson had doubts over whether he would return for the final year of his contract (saying as much eight days after the Orioles had lost on October 15), and a spirited 90-minute phone call between Johnson and Angelos a week later was the last time they spoke to each other. He offered his resignation by fax (after failing to reach Angelos by phone), which Angelos accepted on the same day that Johnson was named American League Manager of the Year on November 5.
The Orioles promoted pitching coach Ray Miller (who Angelos had hired after ordering Pat Dobson to be removed after the 1996 season)
Los Angeles Dodgers
Johnson had interviewed with the Toronto Blue Jays after the 1997 season but wasn't hired. Two years later, he returned to the majors as manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who had won 88 games the previous year. On May 3, he won his 1,000th game as manager, doing so with a 7–0 victory over the Montreal Expos. Johnson did so in his 1,740th game as manager. No manager reached the 1,000 wins plateau nearly as fast as Johnson until Joe Girardi (1,808) in 2020. Johnson suffered the only full losing season of his managerial career, finishing in third place eight games under .500 with 77 wins. While the Dodgers rebounded to second place the next year, it was not enough to save Johnson's job. He finished with a record of 163 wins and 161 losses despite having high-priced talent, such as Kevin Brown and Gary Sheffield (alongside growing talent in future Hall of Famer Adrián Beltré), acquired by general manager Kevin Malone.thumb|Johnson with the [[United States national baseball team|U.S. national team in August 2008, President George W. Bush is directly on Johnson's right, not seen in photo]]
International baseball
Johnson briefly managed the Netherlands national team in 2003 during the absence of Robert Eenhoorn, first at the 2003 World Port Tournament, where the Netherlands lost to Cuba in the finals, and then at the 2003 European Baseball Championship, where the Netherlands won the tournament. Johnson served as a bench coach under Eenhoorn at the 2003 Baseball World Cup and at the 2004 Summer Olympics.
He then managed the United States national team to a seventh-place finish out of an 18-team field in the 2005 Baseball World Cup, held in the Netherlands. The American team finished tied for second in its group during group play with a 6–2 record before falling, 11–3, to eventual winner and 24-time World Cup champion Cuba in the quarterfinals. A subsequent 9–0 loss to Nicaragua put the Americans into the seventh-place game with Puerto Rico, where they prevailed with an 11–3 win.
Johnson served as bench coach for the U.S. during the inaugural 2006 World Baseball Classic. At the 2007 Baseball World Cup in Taiwan, he managed the U.S. to its first world title in more than three decades. He went on to manage the team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, earning a bronze medal, and at 2009 World Baseball Classic, finishing in fourth place. He was named a senior advisor to former GM Mike Rizzo after the 2009 campaign. He became the Nationals manager on June 26, 2011, after the unexpected resignation of Jim Riggleman three days earlier. He served as manager for the rest of the 2011 season. The Nationals won eighty total games in that season, which was good enough for a third-place finish, the best finish for the organization since the move to Washington. On October 31, the Nationals announced that Davey Johnson would be their manager for the 2012 season.
Johnson led the Nationals to the franchise's first division title since 1981 (when they were the Montreal Expos) in 2012, achieving a franchise-record 98 wins—the most wins in baseball that year. They lost the Division Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. It was the third and final time that Johnson had led a team to the best record in the majors without leading them to the World Series. On November 10, Johnson signed a contract to return as manager of the Nationals for the 2013 season. Three days later, Johnson was named National League Manager of the Year. Johnson noted in his autobiography that just before being awarded the Manager of the Year award, he was offered to sign a document by owner Mark Lerner and GM Mike Rizzo to retire after the 2013 season, as opposed to simply not renewing the contract. At any rate, Johnson called the season a "World Series or bust" year, which came to backfire on him.
The 2013 team struggled after a promising start of winning seven of their first ten games, as they went into the All-Star break with a 48–47 record. Despite having a 18–9 record in the month of September, they finished four games out of a wild card berth while finishing second in the NL East with an 86–76 record. On September 29, 2013, Johnson announced his retirement. He had the club record for wins (224) until Dave Martinez passed him in 2021. In 2014, Johnson became a consultant.
Just fifteen managers have finished with a record of 300 or more wins above .500. Johnson finished with a record of 1,372–1,071–2 to finish 301 games above .500 as a manager. In all but one full season as a manager, he won at least 85 games. He is also tenth all time in winning percentage for managers with 1,000 wins. All but Johnson in each category have been inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and he has missed induction four times (twice on the Veterans Committee in 2008 and 2010 and twice with Today's Game ballot in 2017 and 2018).
Managerial record
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size: 95%; text-align:center;"
|-
! rowspan="2"|Team !! rowspan="2"|Year !! colspan="5"|Regular season !! colspan="4"|Postseason
|-
!Games!!Won!!Lost!!Win %!!Finish!! Won !! Lost !! Win % !! Result
|-
|-
!NYM||
||162||90||72|||| 2nd in NL East || – || – || – || –
|-
!NYM||
||162||98||64|||| 2nd in NL East || – || – || – || –
|-style="background:#fde910"
!NYM||
||162||108||54|||| 1st in NL East || 8 || 5 || || Won World Series (BOS)
|-
!NYM||
||162||92||70|||| 2nd in NL East || – || – || – || –
|-style="background:#fdd"
!NYM||
||160||100||60|||| 1st in NL East || 3 || 4 || || Lost NLCS (LAD)
|-
!NYM||
||162||87||75|||| 2nd in NL East || – || – || – || –
|-
!NYM||
||42||20||22|||| fired || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|NYM total || 1012 || 595 || 417 || || || 11 || 9 || .550 ||
|-
!CIN||
||118||53||65|||| 5th in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!CIN||
||114||66||48|||| 1st in NL Central || – || – || – || –
|-style="background:#fdd"
!CIN||
||144||85||59|||| 1st in NL Central || 3 || 4 || || Lost NLCS (ATL)
|-
! colspan="2"|CIN total || 376 || 204 || 172 || || || 3 || 4 || ||
|-style="background:#fdd"
!BAL||
||162||88||74|||| 2nd in AL East || 4 || 5 || || Lost ALCS (NYY)
|-style="background:#fdd"
!BAL||
||162||98||64|||| 1st in AL East || 5 || 5 || .500 || Lost ALCS (CLE)
|-
! colspan="2"|BAL total || 324 || 186 || 138 || .574 || || 9 || 10 || ||
|-
!LAD||
||162||77||85|||| 3rd in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
!LAD||
||162||86||76|||| 2nd in NL West || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|LAD total || 324 || 163 || 161 || || || 0 || 0 || – ||
|-
!WAS||
||83||40||43|||| 3rd in NL East || – || – || – || –
|-style="background:#fdd"
!WAS||
||162||98||64|||| 1st in NL East || 2 || 3 || .400 || Lost NLDS (STL)
|-
!WAS||
||162||86||76|||| 2nd in NL East || – || – || – || –
|-
! colspan="2"|WAS total || 407 || 224 || 183 || || || 2 || 3 || .400 ||
|-
! colspan="2"|Total
As a manager, Johnson integrated data-driven strategies—such as emphasizing on-base percentage and favorable platoon matchups—long before such methods gained mainstream acceptance in Major League Baseball. His analytical approach, particularly with the New York Mets in the 1980s, helped lay the groundwork for the sport's later embrace of sabermetrics.
Personal life
Johnson was born in Orlando, Florida. He graduated from Alamo Heights High School in San Antonio, Texas. He attended Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, as well as Texas A&M University, and graduated from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, in 1964, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics.
Johnson's first marriage, to Mary Nan, ended in divorce. Together they had three children: David Jr., Dawn, and Andrea.
Johnson met his second wife, Susan, in 1993 (they married the following January) while she was organizing a golf tournament for her deaf-blind son Jake and his learning center (she also specialized in working with a charity for Johns Hopkins Hospital). Both Davey and Susan had been married once prior, and both had dealt with health issues of offspring, an issue over which they bonded. Johnson's daughter, Andrea, was a nationally ranked amateur surfer in the late 1980s. She died in 2005 from septic shock and complications from schizophrenia. In 2011, Susan's son (Davey's stepson) Jake died from pneumonia at age 34.
Johnson co-wrote Bats, a diary of the Mets' 1985 season, with longtime sportswriter Peter Golenbock. It was released early in 1986. After the Mets captured the World Series title in October 1986, Davey and Golenbock added another chapter about that season for the paperback edition, published in early 1987.
In 2018, Davey Johnson, alongside Erik Sherman, wrote his autobiography, My Wild Ride in Baseball and Beyond, with the proceeds going to his wife Susan's nonprofit organization, Support Our Scholars.
In 2021, Davey Johnson was treated in a hospital after contracting COVID-19, but recovered.
Death
thumb|Davey Johnson Patch wore to honor the late Mets Manager.
Johnson died at a hospital in Sarasota, Florida, on September 5, 2025. He was 82.
See also
- List of Gold Glove middle infield duos
- List of Major League Baseball managers with most career wins