The Inquiring Photographer: 1990

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

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As we approach the 30th anniversary of Davey's Johnson's whacking, which citizen's take do you agree with most?

[Benjamin Grimm]

I don't recall what my opinion was at the time, but now I'm going with Loy here.



Great idea for a poll! I had forgotten all about the Inquiring Photographer!

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

You can hear the Queens accent in Teresa Cucillo's words. What a firecracker!



I think I'm going with Wendy Wood, who's pretty cute too

[G-Fafif]

They all make compelling points.

[Edgy MD]

I like Oscar's search for subtext.



Today, alsoLoy Augustus has two handsome kids and a taste for turquoise.

[dgwphotography]

IIRC, The antics of the '86 team, especially the cost of repairing the charter jet after the NLCS, soured Frank Cashen of more than a few of the players, leading to those trades.

[kcmets]

They're all pretty good comments. This type of twitter ultra-lite was so much better

than what goes on today. I'm tempted by Wendy Wood, but went with Teresa.



Oscar Carter, lol...

[HahnSolo]

Kenneth West certainly looks like he called Mike and the Mad Dog to settle a dispute between him and his buddies.

[LWFS]

Nobody's quite sure what happened to Kenneth West, but we're pretty sure he's betting on something, somewhere. And that he's got the same haircut, only with a bit more lebensraum for the survivors.



Kind of funny that the one guy who's arguing against the importance of a manager in composing a winning team is, like, a manager.



Like a guy who a ways from the hole, I'm going with one Wood.

[Edgy MD]

I trust Oscar Carter because you can tell that guy is funny. Look at his eye contact. He owns that camera.

[Lefty Specialist]

Wendy Wood. I mean, she's in telecommunications. That's just like the internet in 1990. And she's right, Davey didn't make those dumb trades.

[Edgy MD]

He kinda did though. That Samuel trade was run by him and he said to go for it.

[Lefty Specialist]

Edgy MD wrote: He kinda did though. That Samuel trade was run by him and he said to go for it.

Well, not according to Wendy.

[Lefty Specialist]

'Kenneth West- Stock Manager' seems less like he's investing in Nynex stock and more like he's stocking the shelves at the local D'Agostino's.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Nobody voted with Richard Conklin but I guess worth pointing out that Johnson was an underachiever in Cashen's eyes. Johnson professed to have like, no relationship with Cashen at all, nor really with the players who were kinda on their own. Really at that time everyone was in their own bubble including Cashen.

[Edgy MD]

I think Johnson was in a bad personal place at the time and didn't play well with others. In the early years of his tenure, he treated the veteran players like his peers — some of whom he had played with or against in his own career. His coaches too were a peer group. (Bill Robinson, Mel Stottlemyer, Bud Harrelson, and Bobby Valentine were all on their first tenures as big league coaches. Greg Pavlick too, for that matter.) As those players moved on or retired, and the staff was shuffled, I think he grew more alienated.



I think his other tenures frequently ended similarly, bonding with the players and drinking with the owners. He was as good a manager for turning a franchise around in his first two years as anybody, but he was like a character in a country song — loving deeply and fully at the start of a new relationship and bonding quickly with the family, but growing restless over the years and sabotaging the relationship down the road.