Second bite at the Apple can go sour for New York coaches
Then-Islanders head coach Peter Laviolette watching practice in 2002 at Nassau Coliseum. Credit: Newsday/Paul J. Bereswill
It’s deja vu all over again for Peter Laviolette, as Yogi Berra might have said.
Speaking of which, Berra would have been able to relate to what Laviolette is about to go through. Both are members of a rarefied club: men who have coached or managed two (or more) New York-area MLB, NFL, NHL or NBA franchises.
In the case of Laviolette, whom the Rangers will introduce as their coach on Tuesday, he will become the first to lead both the Rangers and Islanders.
He had a winning overall record and twice qualified for the playoffs with the Isles in 2001-02 and ’02-03, his first head-coaching gig.
Now he is a 58-year-old Stanley Cup winner (with the Hurricanes in 2005-06) who will be asked to drag a group of aging stars across the Cup finish line.
It will not be easy. Historically, it has not been for New York sports double-dippers.
Take basketball, please.
Larry Brown was successful with the Nets in 1981-82 — leading them to a 44-38 record, up from 24-58 the year before — and ’82-83, when they went 49-33.
But Brown, who is from Long Beach, resigned with six games left in that second season to go to the University of Kansas.
The Knicks hired Brown for the 2005-06 season, and he went 23-59 while feuding with his star guard, Stephon Marbury. He did not make it to 2006-07.
Willis Reed captained two Knicks championship teams. As a coach, he was so-so. He did have a winning record of 43-39 with the Knicks in 1977-78, but he was fired 14 games into the following season at 6-8. Then he took over the Nets late in the 1987-88 season. He went 33-77 in that role.
The only man to coach the Giants and Jets did well for himself. After guiding the Giants to their first two Super Bowl titles — XXI and XXV — Bill Parcells helmed the Jets from 1997-99.
Parcells’ 1998 team reached the AFC Championship Game and built a 10-0 lead over the Broncos in what became a 23-10 loss.
But in no sport are the ups and downs of managing multiple New York teams more evident than baseball, with its more than a century of tangled history.
Clockwise, from top left: Casey Stengel, Dallas Green, Yogi Berra, Joe Torre and Buck Showalter
Berra had as wild a ride as anyone, making it to (and losing) Game 7 of the World Series with both the Yankees (in 1964) and Mets (in 1973).
What did that get him? The Yankees fired him after that one year and the Mets let him go (with a winning record) during the ’75 season.
The Yankees hired him back in ’84. He won 87 games before George Steinbrenner famously fired him 16 games into the ’85 season, igniting a 14-year feud.
Buck Showalter led the 1995 Yankees to an ALDS, then was gone. He resurfaced in Queens last year, winning 101 games. This season has not gone as well.
Dallas Green was 56-65 managing the Yankees before being fired during the 1989 season, then managed the Mets from 1993-96, never producing a winning record.
Then there were the three most successful New York baseball retreads.
For Joe Torre, the arrow pointed only up.
He managed the Mets from 1977-81 and went 286-420. The Yankees shocked baseball in 1996 by handing him a championship-ready team, and he won the World Series.
Then he won three more from 1998-2000. Torre won six pennants in 12 seasons, during which he went 1,173-767.
Leo Durocher’s move from the Dodgers to the Giants in the middle of the 1948 season ranks as by far the most jolting crosstown managerial development in New York annals.
The New York Times of July 17 called it “perhaps the most amazing managerial shakeup that the major leagues have ever experienced” and noted the “bewildered baseball world” left in its wake.
Durocher won pennants with both teams, and the 1954 World Series with the Giants.
Finally, we come to Casey Stengel, who for a guy from Kansas City certainly got around New York.
He played for the Dodgers and Giants, then managed the Dodgers, Yankees and Mets, a career that followed a bell-shaped arc.
In three years with the Dodgers from 1934-36, he never had a winning record. In 12 seasons with the Yankees from 1949-60, he won 10 pennants and seven World Series.
Then in 3 ½ years with the hapless original Mets from 1962-65 . . . well, as Casey used to say, you could look it up!
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
