Searching Amazon.com, you can save $4 off the list price on Joe Morgan's "Baseball For Dummies," which takes three days for delivery. I don't know if Davey Johnson can afford to wait that long.
If I'm Dodger chairman Bob Daly, I'm immediately investing $13.56 in Bob Cluck's "Play Better Baseball: Winning Techniques and Strategies for Coaches and Players," because it can be shipped to Johnson in 24 hours and according to Amazon.com's review, is good for "coaches at all levels."
It's not my place to tell Johnson how to manage, of course, and I would never presume to know more than any athlete, coach or owner.
OK, so maybe more than Georgia Frontiere. And Donald Sterling. Consider the potential offspring from that marriage.
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SOMEONE NEEDS TO step to the plate and save the Dodgers, which by coincidence is covered in detail in "The Baseball Coaching Bible."
Somewhat loosely paraphrasing chapter three, "If you're stuck with an erratic sort like Chan Ho Park in your less-than-inspiring rotation and he has given up a single and walks two Phillies--of all stiffs--in a row to load the bases in a 2-2 game in the bottom of the seventh, and you're trying to win a division title and he already leads the league in walks allowed, hello is anybody home in the bullpen?"
So Park throws four more pitches--all balls--and the Dodgers get the chance to tie the game in the ninth when Dave Hansen opens with a walk.
Johnson sends in Alex Cora to run for Hansen, and then tells everyone after the game he was counting on his next two batters to hit the ball out of the park. I guess he figured Cora would look better than Hansen trotting to the plate ahead of whomever hit the home run.
In "101 Championship Baseball Drills," the author unveils an innovative and strikingly creative new technique called "bunting."
I haven't seen the 121-page book, but I would guess the jacket cover says, "It's something that's supposed to be used when a guy like Hansen opens the ninth with a walk, and losing by one run, the manager asks the next batter to sacrifice himself and place the tying run on second. This is known as a no-brainer among baseball people."
If I'm Dodger chairman Bob Daly, I'm borrowing Kevin Brown's private plane and going after that book right now.
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