Davey Johnson Interview - Part I

This exclusive interview with Davey Johnson, the former Yomiuri Giants player, and the then manager of the New York Mets, was conducted at Shea Stadium in June 1985.

NEW YORK — To the average American major league baseball fan, the big surprise of the 1984 season is the rise of the lowly New York Mets, who, with a talented young group of players, appear to be on the verge of repeating their famous miracles of 1969 and 1973.

For the Japanese baseball fan watching from afar, the even bigger surprise must be their manager: None other than Davey Johnson. The man who once toiled in vain for the Yomiuri Giants, and was dubbed with the ignominious nickname of “J-son” (J-loss), is now the toast of New York City and the talk of the National League, with his young, cocky and brassy ballclub.

Indeed, since taking over as pilot of the Mets early this year, after several successful seasons as a minor league manager, Johnson has now become a symbol of the new wave of “junior executive” type managers that are popping up in big league ballparks, with his innovative “hi-tech” computerized approach to managing a baseball team, that is most appropriately symbolized by the elaborate IBM personal computer system that takes up much of the space in his office, and the radar dish that adorns the main gate at Shea Stadium (for taping via satellite, all games of all opponents.)