Today in Sports History: March 17th

3/17/1999 - Jays fire manager for 'Nam fibbing

Tim Johnson had done a solid job as the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays. In just one season, he had improved their record to 88-74, and had them within a few games of the playoffs. Much of the team's success was attributed to his ability to fire up the team with his war stories from Vietnam. The problem was that in November of 1998, Johnson admitted that all the 'Nam stories he had told had been completely made up. As a part of the Marine Corps, he had never once taken part in the Vietnam War.

Johnson had no trouble admitting that the stories were fake, as he felt that there wouldn't be any fallout. ''Credibility, to me, is going out there and watching the game, watching the players play for you,'' he said. ''That's going to show if you have credibility or not. Nothing's going to change my way of going after the players and talking to them and when you need to get on them. Nothing's going to change.''

The players felt differently. There was a serious lack of credibility with Johnson, having lied about his service, and eventually the Blue Jays management felt it was too much of a distraction to go on. They fired Johnson in the middle of spring training and replaced him with former major leaguer Jim Fregosi. Since then, the Blue Jays have yet to have a season where they won more than 88 games.