Orioles’ Showalter named Sporting News’ Manager of the Year

Baltimore Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter was named the American League Manager of the Year for 2012 by the Sporting News. While this isn’t exactly a surprise, it’s most definitely an honor for Showalter. The Orioles of course are coming off of a 93-69 season in which they finished second in the AL East to New York. They also qualified for the post season for the first time since 1997. According to Roch Kubatko of masnsports.com, Showalter gave the following statement to The Sporting News:

Courtesy of Joy R. Absalon-US PRESSWIRE

“It’s quite an honor coming from my peers, but I view this as a team award. I really do. The players, coaches and everyone involved made this possible. Every player back in spring training believed we could be successful. We have some injuries along the way, we had some bumps in the road, but everyone does over 162 games. We never turned it into a woe-is-me situation. We played through it. Some people said we were lucky, and we probably were at times. But there are no Cinderellas in baseball. There are too many games for that. Now comes the hard part. You have to build on this season and improve.”

This is not the “official” award given by MLB each year for Manager of the Year, voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America. That honoree will be announced on November 12th. In an odd twist, the last Orioles’ manager to lead the team to the playoffs, Davey Johnson (now of the Washington Nationals), was named the NL’s Manager of the Year by The Sporting News. On behalf of Birds Watcher and the Fansided Network, congratulations to Buck Showalter and the entire Orioles organization!