Former major league manager Davey Johnson says he's honored to coach the U.S. team
OLYMPIC BASEBALL
But he also recognizes the responsibility and the challenge as the Americans enter the medal round.
BEIJING — Davey Johnson was done with baseball when the Dodgers fired him as their manager eight years ago.
"To be honest, I was really burned out," Johnson remembered. "I can [only] take so much. I needed to recharge my batteries."
After all, what did he have left to accomplish? In a nearly a quarter-century as a major league player and manager, Johnson won five league championships and three World Series, made four All-Star teams and earned three Gold Gloves.
But he also clashed with management at virtually every stop along the way, picking up more pink slips than division titles in his final decade. So when the Dodgers asked him to leave after two frustrating seasons in Los Angeles. he rushed for the exit.
"At that point I was basically relieved," he said. So, he figured, he'd go home, relax and that would be it.
Which it was.
Until Johnson got a call from sports agent Alan Nero with an intriguing opportunity. And now that phone call has him on the brink of playing for an Olympic gold medal.
Johnson's U.S. baseball team meets longtime rival Cuba on Friday in the medal round of what may prove to be the final Olympic baseball tournament. The sport, along with softball, is not on the schedule for the 2012 Games in London, and the International Olympic Committee will vote next year on whether baseball should return to Games at all.
Johnson is confident he wouldn't have returned to the game at all if not for the call from Nero five years ago.
Robert Eenhoorn, manager of the Dutch national team, had just lost his 6-year-old son Ryan to cancer and needed someone to finish preparing the team for the European championships.
"Once I heard that, I couldn't say no," Johnson said.
And with a former big league manager in their dugout, the Dutch won the tournament to qualify for the 2004 Olympics, where they won twice. That, in turn, got the attention of Bob Watson, major league baseball's point man with the Olympic team.
"I thought at the time -- and nothing has happened that proves me wrong -- that he was the right man for the job at the right time," Watson said. "We wanted to have some continuity, some stability. We wanted an experienced guy at the helm.
"And we felt that working with these young people would be something that he would relish."
