Davey Johnson - Playing Career

Playing Career

After one season playing baseball at Texas A&M University, Johnson signed with the Baltimore Orioles as an amateur free agent in 1962. After signing, Johnson was assigned to the Stockton Ports in the Class C (now Single A) California League where he hit .309 with 10 home runs and 63 runs batted in in 97 games. Moved up to AA Elmira in 1963, Johnson hit .326 in 63 games before being promoted to AAA Rochester for the final 63 games of the season. Returning to the Red Wings for the entire 1964 season, Johnson had 19 HRs, 73 RBI, and 87 runs.

In 1965, Johnson made the Orioles out of spring training, but saw only limited time in 20 games (hitting .170) and spent the later part of the season in the minors, where he batted .301 in 52 games for the Red Wings (his final trip back to the minor leagues). Back with the Orioles in 1966, Johnson saw limited playing time until June 13 when the Orioles traded second baseman Jerry Adair to the Chicago White Sox to make room for Johnson at second base. He responded with a .257 batting average, seven HRs and 56 RBI to finish third in American League Rookie of the Year balloting for the 1966 World Series champions. Johnson would be a full-time starter in major leagues for the next eight seasons, averaging over 142 games played in a season. In the 1966 World Series, Johnson would win his first World Series ring and earn the distinction of being the last person to get a hit off of Sandy Koufax.

Johnson reached the World Series again with the Orioles in 1969, 1970, and 1971, winning his second ring in 1970. He also won the AL Gold Glove Award at second base all three seasons. Orioles shortstop Mark Belanger won the award as well in 1969 and 1971, joining a select list of shortstop-second baseman combinations to have won the honor in the same season while playing together. Third baseman Brooks Robinson also was in the middle of his record 16 straight Gold Glove streak when Johnson and Belanger won their awards.

Following the 1972 season, one in which Johnson would hit only .221 in 118 games, he was traded along with starting pitchers Pat Dobson and Roric Harrison, and catcher Johnny Oates to the Atlanta Braves for minor league infielder Taylor Duncan and former National League Rookie of the Year catcher Earl Williams. The following season with the Braves, Johnson enjoyed the best statistical year of his career when his offense exploded and he tied Rogers Hornsby's record for most single-season home runs by a second baseman with 42 (Johnson actually hit 43 that year, but one came as a pinch hitter – The Sporting News Baseball Record Book, 2007 p. 23). The 1973 Braves featured the first trio of teammates ever to each hit 40 home runs in the same season when Johnson hit 43, Darrell Evans hit 41, and Hank Aaron hit 40. Johnson's second-highest home run total was 18 in the 1971 season – a number considered to be good for a second baseman prior to the steroid era of the 1990s and 2000s.

Four games into the 1975 season and after getting a hit in his only at bat, Johnson was released by the Braves. He then signed with the Yomiuri Giants in the Japanese League and played with the team in both the 1975 and 1976 seasons. In 1977, he returned to the United States after signing as a free agent with the Philadelphia Phillies. Relegated to a utility infielder role, Johnson still hit .321 with 8 HRs in 78 games and played in one game in the Phillies National League Championship Series loss to the Dodgers.

During the 1978 season, Johnson hit two grand slam home runs as a pinch-hitter, becoming the first major leaguer to do it in a season. Four other players, Mike Ivie of the San Francisco Giants (1978), Darryl Strawberry of the New York Yankees (1998), Ben Broussard of the Cleveland Indians (2004), and Brooks Conrad of the Atlanta Braves (2010), would go on to equal Johnson's feat. Shortly afterwards, Philadelphia dealt him to the Chicago Cubs, where he played the final 24 games of his career before retiring at the end of the season.