BALTIMORE – A few minutes before the first pitch Friday night, the Jumbotron in center field displayed a video tribute to former Orioles manager Buck Showalter.
Fans throughout Camden Yards applauded, with many rising to their feet.
In the visitors’ dugout, Showalter struck a familiar pose, one that he demonstrated often during his nine seasons leading the Orioles from 2010 to 2018.
- Buck Showalter career record: 1,702 wins – 1,637 losses in regular season, 10-16 in playoffs
Related: MLB power rankings
Arms on the dugout railing, elbows sprawled, Showalter, now the manager of the New York Mets, watched the video and listened to the crowd. A half-scowl – his perpetual game face – remained steady, but it looked like he was about to tear up. Instead, he tipped his cap a couple times in silence.
“I appreciated it,” Showalter said later. “I really did. They didn’t have to do that.”
Of all the things that have happened with the Orioles this season, Friday night may have been the most surreal.
Showalter, the second-winningest manager in modern franchise history, was back at Camden Yards for the first time since being fired – or, technically, not having his contract renewed – in 2018.
Related: New York Mets placed high asking price on Pete Alonso trade
He returned with arguably the most disappointing team in the history of baseball, the liquidating, fourth-place Mets, who this week dealt away roughly a fifth of their record-setting, $344 million roster, including two future Hall of Famers.
He was facing an Orioles club that had stripped down to its studs – partially while Showalter managed the team in 2018 – and somehow, five years later, have the best record in the American League.
“I’m really happy that the fans of the Orioles – they’re as good as it gets – are getting some return for their support, just like we hope to do with our fans in Queens,” Showalter said. “Had some good times like last year and we’ve had some challenges this year, but they’re self-inflicted. They’re self-inflicted, so nobody wants to hear it.”
Related: Highest-paid MLB players
In typical Showalter style, he diverted the blame of the Mets’ terrible season onto himself. Also in typical Showalter style, he suggested that maybe things will get better soon. He says he’s looking at this season as “so far.”
With a 50-59 record, including a 10-3 loss to the Orioles on Friday, others aren’t so optimistic. A few oddsmakers suggest Showalter is the manager most likely to be fired during the remainder of this year. That doesn’t sit well with Showalter’s players.
“That’s crazy to me. Those are outside people that don’t know the game of baseball,” said Mets outfielder DJ Stewart, who also played under Showalter with the Orioles in 2018. “Anyone is lucky to play for Buck. He is an unbelievable manager and I’m so happy to be here with him.”
Showalter’s players often have his back. Because he keeps lines of communication open, he pushes them to excel and he is always ultra-prepared for every game, every situation.
“For me, I just don’t think you can punish a manager for lack of player performance,” said Mets first baseman Pete Alonso. “I mean, everything he has dealt with, with player personnel, injuries, morale. He’s just an all-time pro. He’s definitely the best big-league manager I have ever played for. He has had such a long and successful career.”
This is Season 22 managing in the big leagues for the 67-year-old Showalter. He is 1,702-1,637 in his career, a .510 winning percentage. He’s 19th overall in the history of baseball in managerial wins and games managed and he’s fourth in both categories among active managers.
He’s never been to a World Series, but he’s been to the playoffs six times, including in 2012 with an Orioles squad which hadn’t been to the postseason in 15 years, and last year with a Mets club that won 101 games, their most since 1986. He’s won manager of the year four times.
He also tried to hold it all together in 2018, when the Orioles lost a franchise worst 115 games and traded away most of their best players. He has had to do the same this year with the Mets.
Related: Takeaways from MLB trade deadline
“It does have some similarities,” Showalter said pre-game. “I hadn’t really thought about it a lot right now.”
Later, he was asked about the difficulty of managing such impossible situations. How he has been able to keep his composure, his sanity.
“If you react bitterly every time something goes wrong, I mean, sometimes you have to realize it’s not anybody’s fault,” he said.
Still, Showalter is now in his second experience with a roster being almost completely sold out from underneath him.
“It’s easy to be a good leader in good times, but when times aren’t going so well, the fact that he’s been such an incredible leader this entire season, it speaks volumes not just about his professionalism but also who he is as a person,” Alonso said. “No one wants to be in the situation we’re in. Being the manager, he’s the tip of the spear. … Losing stinks and I know, for him, every time he writes a lineup, he wants to win.”
In 2018, Showalter’s contract was expiring, as well as general manager Dan Duquette’s. The two had worked together to turn around the Orioles’ fortunes from 2012 to 2018, when the Orioles made the playoffs three times and had the best record in the AL during that span.
Showalter and Duquette had their issues, however, and the sense was one wouldn’t be renewed and the other would be. It was anyone’s guess who would survive. But ownership, led by John and Louis Angelos, fired both. The Angelos brothers ultimately hired GM Mike Elias and manager Brandon Hyde, who have led this new renaissance in Baltimore. The Orioles are clearly on the way up.
Showalter, conversely, has a year left on his contract and the Mets have lost their mojo. Still, there is no reason he shouldn’t be brought back. He’s a year removed from the NL Manager of the Year Award. He didn’t cause this 2023 train wreck. So, he shouldn’t take the fall for it.
Maybe he walks away himself. Retires for good. But not giving Showalter the opportunity to go out on his terms – and take another shot at a World Series with the team that should have money to supplement quickly – would be unfair.
Showalter chewed on that concept for a moment after Friday’s game.
“If you want fair,” he said matter-of-factly, “you’re in the wrong profession.”
Dan Connolly is an MLB Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.