“No. Because nobody has ever proved to me that the second guess would have worked.”

—Dick Howser, who managed the Kansas City Royals for six years, including their 1985 World Series champion year, before dying of brain cancer in 1987, when asked, in ‘85, if he ever second-guessed himself. As reported in Dave Anderson’s New York Times column today. Anderson adds, “Has any major league manager, from Connie Mack and John McGraw to Casey Stengel and Joe Torre, ever dismissed the second-guessers’ criticism so simply and so sensibly?” I post this as an inveterate second-guesser of myself.