Coach and Scout
Johnson's playing career was interrupted by eleven months spent as an MLB coach. In August 1960, Johnson was released as a player and added to the coaching staff of Cardinals manager Solly Hemus, then reappointed for 1961. When the Redbirds fired Hemus on July 8, 1961, Johnson also was released. The following day, he signed a playing contract with the Phillies, and spent five weeks (catching in 21 games) in Philadelphia before finishing the year as one of the catchers with the Reds' National League champions. Johnson had two singles in four at bats for the Reds in the 1961 World Series against his old team, the Yankees, who won in five games. Cincinnati released Johnson only a few days into the 1962 season, and he signed with the Orioles as a backup catcher. Then, in June 1962, Johnson retired from the active ranks again and served out the year as Baltimore's bullpen coach.
He then became a minor league manager in the Baltimore system and won championships with the Rochester Red Wings of the Triple-A International League (1964) and Elmira Pioneers of the Double-A Eastern League (1966). After a year as a scout for the 1967 Yankees, he was named pitching coach of the defending AL champion Red Sox under Dick Williams in 1968–1969. After Williams' firing, Johnson was retained by the Red Sox as a scout in 1970, then managed Boston's Triple-A Louisville Colonels in 1971–1972. He became the first manager of the AAA version of the Pawtucket Red Sox, finishing 78-68—and winning the Governor's Cup, emblematic of the IL's playoff championship—in his only PawSox season in 1973. That championship earned him a promotion to the Red Sox managing job.
After his firing in Seattle in 1980, Johnson served as third-base coach on Don Zimmer's Ranger staff beginning in 1981, before taking over for Zimmer as manager on July 30, 1982. Ironically, six years earlier, the roles had been reversed when coach Zimmer had relieved Johnson of his managerial duties in Boston. Johnson then moved to the New York Mets as a Major League coach, minor league coordinator of instruction, and longtime scout.
He died from leukemia in Fairfield, California, at the age of 75.
Read more about this topic: Darrell Johnson
Famous quotes containing the words coach and, coach and/or scout:
“There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?”
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“There is no country in which so absolute a homage is paid to wealth. In America there is a touch of shame when a man exhibits the evidences of large property, as if after all it needed apology. But the Englishman has pure pride in his wealth, and esteems it a final certificate. A coarse logic rules throughout all English souls: if you have merit, can you not show it by your good clothes and coach and horses?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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