25 Years of Yankee Managers

One thing that always cracked me up was when Yankee fans would brag about what a great owner George Steinbrenner was. Conveniently forgetting that his two dynasties occurred after he was suspended from baseball.

Check it out.

In 1974, he was suspended for two years for making illegal contributions to Richard Nixon's 1972 campaign (One's a born liar, the other's convicted) With the Boss out of the picture, Gabe Paul rebuilt the team that won 3 straight American League Pennants, and 4 in six years.

Fast forward to 1990. The night they announced Steinbrenner was suspended for dealing with dirtbag gambler Howie Spira, Yankee Stadium exploded in celebration. At the time, the Bombers had baseball worst record. In the two years Steinbrenner was out, Gene Michael drafted the likes of Derek Jeter, and Andy Pettite and more importantly didn't trade away Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams. That core won another 5 pennants and 4 World titles.

I appreciate Steinbrener was willing to spend big money. And yes his spending kept the team contending throughout the early 2000's. But there were a bunch of deals that went south as well.

Anyway, I'm not here to bash the Boss, but rather to point out that a team that once employed three managers in one season (1982-Bob Lemon, Gene Michael, Clyde King) have had three managers in the last 25 years.

From 1992 to 2017, Buck Showalter, Joe Torre and Joe Girardi have been the only three men to manage the New York Yankees. Making Yankee Manager one of the most stable jobs there is along with Pope, Supreme Court Justice and Pittsburgh Steelers head coach.


Here now is a list of all the NY Sports teams and the managers/coaches they've employed since 1992..



Mets
1992-93 Jeff Torborg
1993-1996 Dallas Green
1996-2002-Bobby Valentine
2003-2004 Art Howe
2005-2008 Willie Randolph
2008-2010-Jerry Manuel
2011-2017 Terry Collins
2017-? Mickey Calloway


Giants

1992-Ray Handley
1993-1995- Dan Reeves
1996-2003- Jim Fassel
2004-2015- Tom Coughlin
2016-? Ben McAdoo


Jets

1992-1993 Bruce Coslet
1994- Pete Carroll
1995-1996 Rich Kotite
1997-1999 Bill Parcells
2000-Bill Belichick*
2000-Al Groh
2001-2005 Herm Edwards
2006-2008- Eric Mangini
2009-2014 Rex Ryan
2015-? Todd Bowles

Knicks

1992-1995 Pat Riley
1995-1996-Don Nelson
1996-2001 Jeff Van Gundy
2001-2004-Don Cheney
2004- Lenny Wilkens
2005-Herb Williams
2005-2006 Larry Brown
2006-2008 Isiah Thomas
2008-2012- Mike Dantoni
2012-2014 Mike Woodson
2014-2016 Derek Fisher
2016-Kurt Rambis
2016-? Jeff Hornacek


Nets

1992-Bill Fitch
1992-1994-Chuck Daly
1994-1996-Butch Beard
1996-1999-John Calipari
1999-2000-Don Casey
2000-2004-Byron Scott
2004-2009-Lawrence Frank
2009-Tom Barrise
2009-2010-Kiki Vandeweighe
2010-2012-Avery Johnson
2012-2013-PJ Carlesemo
2013-2014-Jason Kidd
2014-2016-Lionel Hollins
2016-Tony Brown
2016-?-Kenny Atkinson


Rangers

1992-1993 Roger Neilson
1993-Ron Smith
1993-94 Mike Keenan
1995-1998-Colin Campbell
1998-2000 John Muckler
2000-2002-Ron Low
2002-2003 Bryan Trottier
2003-2004 Glen Sather
2005-2009-Tom Renney
2009-2013-John Tortarella
2013-?-Alain Vigneaualt

Islanders

1992-1994 Al Arbour
1995-Lorne Henning
1995-1997; 1998-99 Mike Milbury
1997-98 Rick Bowness
1999-Bill Stewart
1999-2001 Butch Goring
2001-2003 Peter Laviolette
2003-2006-Steve Stirling
2006-Brad Shaw
2006-2008 Ted Nolan
2008-2010-Scott Gordon
2010-2017-Jack Capuano
2017-? Doug Weight


Devils

1992-Herb Brooks
1993-1998-2009, 2010, 2011 Jacques Lemaire
1998-2000 Robbie Ftorek
2000-2002-2005 Larry Robinson
2002-Kevin Constantine
2002-2005-Pat Burns
2005-2007 Lou Lamoriello
2005-2007-Claude Julien
2007-2009 Brent Sutter
2010- John MacLean
2011-2014 Peter DeBoer
2015-? John Hynes


Some Notes

Bill Belichick was named head coach of the Jets in 1997 while the Jets and Patriots worked out compensation for Bill Parcells. He was more infamously coach in 2000 for a day before resigning as HC of NYJ.

The Devils had 12 different coaches, but made about 16 coaching changes. Larry Robinson and Jacques Lemaire made multiple trips behind the Devils bench.

Herb Williams had a couple of stints coaching the Knicks, and probably deserved a longer shot as coach.

If the Wildcard was around in the 80's

A few years ago, thanks to baseballreference.com, I tried to break it down if the playoff rules were the same in the 80's as they were in the 90's. Everybody talks about how the Mets only won in 1986, but if the rules were different, they may have had a better shot.

In 1994, MLB introduced the Wild Card. They also realigned the divisions, created a third division in each league. The three teams that were taken out of the NL East were all teams that finished first in the NL East from 1984-1990 with the exception of the two years the Mets took the crown. In other words, all things being equal, the Mets would have won  7 straight division titles.

But all things weren't equal, I would have to account for the two teams that joined the league in 1993 (Rockies and Marlins). So instead, I created a Wild Card System in which the team with the best record in each league would get a bye to the LCS, while the first place team with the lesser record would have to play the second place team with the better record. You could make it a one game play-in if you wanted.

Anyway between 1984 and 1990, here's how the playoffs would have looked...



1984

Padres vs Mets                winner gets Cubs
Blue Jays vs Royals        winner gets Tigers

1985

Dodgers vs Mets                 winner gets Cardinals
Yankees vs. Royals             winner gets Blue Jays


1986

Phillies vs Astros              winner gets Mets
Yankees vs Angels            winner gets Red Sox

1987

Mets vs Giants                winner gets Cardinals
Blue Jays vs Twins          winner gets Tigers

1988

Reds vs Dodgers             winner gets Mets
Twins vs Red Sox           winner gets Athletics


1989 Padres vs. Giants                  winner gets Cubs
Royals vs Blue Jays                       winner gets Athletics


1990

Mets vs Reds                       winner gets Pirates
White Sox vs Red Sox        winner gets Athletics


And to torture myself further here's how I think they would have gone...

1984

Mets over Padres
Cubs over Mets
Blue Jays over Royals
Tigers over Blue Jays
Tigers over Cubs

1985
Mets over Dodgers
Mets over Cardinals
Royals over Yankees
Royals over Blue Jays
Mets over Royals

1986
Astros over Phillies
Mets over Astros
Yankees over Angels
Yankees over Red Sox
Mets over Yankees  (heh heh heh)

1987
Giants over Mets
Cardinals over Giants
Blue Jays over Twins
Blue Jays over Tigers
Blue Jays over Cardinals

1988
Dodgers over Reds
Dodgers over Mets
Twins over Red Sox
A's over Twins
A's over Dodgers

1989
Giants over Padres
Cubs over Giants
Royals over Blue Jays
Royals over A's
Cubs over Royals

1990
Reds over Mets
Reds over Pirates
White Sox over Red Sox
A's over White Sox
Reds over A's

WFAN'S 10 GREATEST MOMENTS

WFAN celebrated their 30th anniversary on July 1. They recently ran a poll to select the 10 greatest NY sports moments of the last 30 years. Here they are, with my commentary...



10) 2000 Subway Series- OK, so for obvious reasons this was a hard one for me to swallow, but there was one moment in the series where I was a proud New Yorker..... There were numerous stories saying that this was the lowest rated World Series in history, reflecting the country's downright hostility towards New York.  But at one point, the FOX camera crew focused on the Met bullpen, where David Cone of the Yankees had hopped the wall and was sitting watching the game with Met reliever John Franco. The two of them sitting there laughing and enjoying the game. Fans of both teams complained but I thought it was great. What better way to remind the rest of the country that New York was the baseball capital than by having two guys from the opposite teams sitting there together. To me that was a proverbial flip of the bird to all the NY haters out there.

9) 1996 World Series- This was fun. The Yankees were not yet the hateable bunch of d-cks they would become. And even though the act would grow very old, watching Joe Torre cry that Sunday evening as he was going to his first show, with his poor brother awaiting a transplant while having buried another brother earlier that year, was not only heartwarming, it convinced me the Yanks were going to win it all, despite being heavy underdogs to the Braves. One of the few I've gotten right over the years.

8) Giants win Super Bowl 46- This has lost some luster in my eyes, as I hear Giant fans telling me that their team and their QB is the only team capable of being Brady/Bellichick in a Super Bowl. To which I respond Who are the only two QB's to beat Brady/Bellichik in the playoffs at New England. Joe Flacco is one. Peyton Manning is NOT the other one. That would be Mr. Buttfumble himself.

7) Matteau, Matteau Goal in 1994- I was at the Met game with my girlfriend and some of her male high school friends (almost all of whom were Islander fans) when Valeri Zelepukin scored that game tying goal with 7 seconds left. "I live in Whitestone! yelled the one other Ranger fan in the group, we can get to my house before OT starts." I drove my 79 Ford as fast as the poor thing could go, to the house of some dude I had only met that night (and would never see again) and when Stephane Matteau scored that goal, I literally cried into this poor dude's shoulder. Needless to say, a month later, my relationship was over. But this memory will last a lifetime.

6) Jeter's flip in the 2001 playoffs- I was with Woodsy at the Beach Club watching this one. At the time, everyone in the bar was yelling at poor Ellen Cahill because she skipped the jukebox playing God Bless America for the 10th time that hour. (we were just a month past 9/11 at this time) One by one everyone stopped yelling at Ellen and started watching the replay of El Capitan cutting the ball off, flipping it to Jorge Posada and nailing Jeremy Giambi at the plate. FOX must have showed the replay 100 times, every time the bar collectively yelled "Holy $h-t"

5) Aaron Boone's 2003 ALCS winning homer- Was home watching this one with Mom, just days after her surgery. Had pretty much passed out after the 9th inning, and was awoken by the roar of the Yankee Stadium crowd. Or maybe it was the collective groan coming from New England. Earlier that post season, Trot Nixon hit a game winning homer against Oakland, and told Jim Gray that he "didn't hit that home run, Jesus Christ did." Well, Jesus didn't hit this one against the Red Sox, according to the Sawx fans, Aaron f-cking Boone did.

4) Mike Piazza's 9/11 Home Run- I've written about this several times. Of all these great moments, this was the only one I was there to see live. We thought it was important to show the world we were going to go on and not be scared to go out, so me, dad, Katie and Steve did our civic duty and headed to Shea Stadium that night. As it looked like the Mets were going to lose, I began to rationalize that the  score was not important, that being hit to support New York was the main goal and then BOOM!, Piazza hit one of his no doubt about it blasts and the Mets held on. Would it have been as special if they had lost? Glad I didn't have to find out.

3) Rangers Win Stanley Cup in 1994- Chaz Palmenteri hosted a town hall with Mike and the Mad Dog right before their 30 for 30 aired on ESPN, and they were asked their most memorable time as a team. Russo chose this. (Hockey moron Fancessa chose the 96 Yankees) I'm obviously biased here, this would be without question number one if I were putting the list together, but putting my bias aside, hockey was never more popular in the US, the city was never more united than it was for those two weeks in June 1994. Had the Knicks been able to overcome John Starks poor shooting 8 nights later, NY would have had two ticker tape parades in one month. Think about that for a minute.

2) David Tyree's helmet catch and 1) The Giants Win Super Bowl 42.

As I said previously, Super Bowl 46 wasn't nearly as much fun, but Super Bowl 42? That was a blast. The Patriots were 18-0 coming in, about to join the 1972 Dolphins as the only unbeaten teams in modern NFL history. No team has made me more miserable in the past 30 years than the Patriots, so watching them go undefeated was something I wasn't looking forward to. Tyree's catch was the luckiest catch in the history of the NFL, but to me that night it was a thing of beauty. I ended up heading out to 1st Avenue that night (I was living on 70th and York) and I had a gray and blue Rangers sweatshirt on, which a group of revelers mistook for a Giants sweatshirt and mobbed me with hugs and high fives. Good times.