This curious chasm in the sports calendar has spawned all kinds of lists - best NFL players, MLB players, and NBA players. Sometimes we forget there have been all kinds of characters and caricatures who have coached or managed a Big Apple sports team. Let's look at the five best to do so. Since the Yankees have won 27 World Series, we could just stuff the stocking with pinstripes. So we will leave three spots open for other sports. And they have to have coached or managed at least five years in NYC (which, sadly, eliminates Gil Hodges and Pat Riley).
5. Tom Coughlin
This was a battle between Weeb Ewbank, Davey Johnson, and Coughlin. But the red-faced, football lifer wins the spot based on conquering two Super Bowls with Big Blue, including one against the 18-0 New England Patriots - the biggest upset this side of Super Bowl III. Ewbank had an overall losing record with the Jets. Johnson should have won one more World Series with his loaded Mets clubs, especially in 1988, when they won 10 of 11 games against the Dodgers during the regular season, then gagged against them in the NLCS. Coughlin may not be the most lovable or affable coach with players or the press, but in the fishbowl of the Big Apple he didn't flinch. He also won 102 games, not including playoffs. Only Steve Owen has more, and he coached the Giants twice as long as Coughlin did (24 years to 12).
4. Casey Stengel
His gargoyle looks and windy quips aside, Stengel won ten pennants and seven World Series as skipper of the Yanks. Joe McCarthy also won seven Fall Classics, but it took him 16 years, while Stengel etched his pinstriped legacy in 12 years. Like Miller Huggins, who had Ruth for ten years and Gehrig for five; and Joe McCarthy, who had Gehrig for 15 years and Joe DiMaggio for seven years; Stengel had his share of All-Stars and transcendent stars, including Joe D for the last three years of his career, and Mickey Mantle for 10 years. Stengel also managed Phil Rizzuto, Yogi Berra, and Whitey Ford - a roll call for Cooperstown. Stengel was fired for the treasonous act of losing Game 7 of the 1960 World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates, which caused Casey to joke, "I'll never make the mistake of turning 70 again." Stengel was also proof that the gravity the job has been biblical for decades, if not a century.
3. Red Holzman
Still the last Knicks head coach to win an NBA Finals, Holzman led those two sublime squads that won world titles in 1970 and 1973. Both championships were earned by toppling the iconic Los Angeles Lakers, both times beating Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain. Not only is West the NBA logo, he led the NBA in scoring in 1970, with 31.2 points per game, making it his only scoring title. You know the players and Hall of Famers, from Bradley to Reed to Frazier to DeBusschere. Holzman has 696 career wins as Knicks coach, by far the most in team history. It would take two decades (and Pat Riley) before the Knicks would truly contend again, but Knicks fans still haven't enjoyed a title since the Nixon Administration, under Holzman.
2. Joe Torre
Torre averaged 97.5 wins a season as skipper in the Bronx. It's a mark made a bit easier by the 162-game schedule not afforded other iconic Yankees managers. But Torre won four world titles in five years during the free agency period, massaging epic egos and newly-minted brands. and in the heart of the steroid era. And while the Bronx Bombers were not void of juicers, they only had a single 30-homer season on all their championship clubs, when Bernie Williams swatted exactly 30 in 2000. Torre's Yanks won fewer than 92 games just once in Torre's 12 years. And if not for a quirky, broken-bat base hit in Arizona, Torre would have five rings. Torre was also the least likely person to appear on this list. He was fired three times before he took over the Bombers under the "Clueless Joe" banner. Now, only Joe McCarthy has more games managed and won with the Yanks than Joe Torre, who also had to navigate two rounds of playoffs before reaching the World Series.
1. Bill Parcells
Imagine Torre leaving the Yanks for the Mets and pulling them up to the NLCS. That's a bit like Bill Parcells's gridiron magic. After leading the Giants to two Super Bowl victories, he left, took New England to a Super Bowl, and then landed on Gang Green's campus and took that mess of a football team to the 1998 AFC title game, which they led 10-0 in the third quarter, on the road, against the Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos. Ironically, a fumble from Parcells's favorite player, Curtis Martin, helped close the coffins on the Jets' season. Parcells is already in the Hall of Fame - where he clearly belongs - but he may also go down as the greatest repairman in NFL history. Born and raised 20 minutes from Giants and MetLife Stadiums, Parcells dreamed of coaching the G-Men at Yankee Stadium. Instead, he got to revive two local teams in his native New Jersey. And since turning a moribund NFL franchise a Super Bowl is perhaps the hardest achievement in American team sports, Parcells gets the nod and the top spot since he did it with both of our football franchises.
Twitter: @JasonKeidel
