I do not follow baseball as fervently as I once did. couple of reasons, I no longer live near a city that has a major league park, and I am somewhat in protest of fuhrer (interim) Bud Selig forcing the Houston Astros into the American League. there I said it, I am an Astros fan. Probably just lost a lot of credit and blog readers there.
The whole Astros having to move angered me. Why did the MLB decide that the Brewers could not move back to the league that they came from – oh yeah Selig used to own that team. Anyway that is not what I wanted to talk about.
I looked at the standings today and saw that the Washington Nationals are on top in the NL east, and that the Baltimore Orioles are in contention in the AL east. these teams have talent, but in my mind it starts with the managers. I have been a Davey Johnson supporter for a while, though I did not care for the Mets team he managed in 1986. Yeah you hear about how the poor miserable Red Sox fans suffered that world series. Well there are a lot of Astros fans that suffered that 1986 NLCS. Game 6 was an extra innings nail biter. The Mets were in a must win, because waiting in the wings for game 7 was Mike Scott and Black and Decker or what ever he was using to make the ball dance. Scott was so into the Mets collective heads that if it went to game 7, no way would they have won. Scotts NLCS 18 IP 8 H 1 R 1 ER 1 BB 19 K. Then again who knows he may have just been shelled in game 7.
Anyway Johnson is a solid manager. He has won a ring, but everywhere he has managed, he has left the team in very good shape while getting some raw deals (Ray Knight in Cincy).
same for Buck Showalter. Good game manager. Has not won a ring, but the teams he has managed have won the series soon after he left. (Yankees, D-backs). I am happy to see a couple of guys that respect the game and seem to be good people getting good results.
slicethelife 
Teams always doing well after Bucky Showalter left them. I don’t know if that says something good or bad about Bucky. He is doing a great job in Baltimore. I don’t know if he’s changed his style or not. He was always an extremely hands on manager. He would have fit in better a few decades ago.
Davey Johnson although a good manager over the years.. boy those Mets teams should have been to more than one World Series. They were like the Bears..how did the Bears only go to one Super Bowl? I think both teams lost their focus.
Washington has given up the least amount of runs this year. They have great pitching. A young and exciting team. Big things are going to happen there -they already are.
This time last season the Nationals were on a hot streak. I went to a game there- got back to the hotel and get on the internet and see their manager Jim Riggleman had quit. He wanted a contract extension and they declined. You have to wonder what he was thinking. He wasn’t Tony in St.Louis. He was Jim Riggleman.
Back in 1969 the Big Red Machine was starting to jell. They fired manager Dave Bristol and hired Sparky Anderson. Dave Bristol always contended- if he had been given that one more season…. that he had them ready and Sparky came in and got all the credit and glory…