Friday Felipe Alou recorded his 900th regular-season win as a manger as the Giants beat the Astros, 4-2. Today Joe Torre's Yanks evened their record with their eighth straight win, 6-4 over the A's, behind Tino Martinez's two home runs giving him eighth in eight games. It was Torre's 1800th win.

Torre is now 13th in managerial wins and third among active managers, behind Tony LaRussa and Bobby Cox. Every retired manager ahead of him is in the Hall of Fame except for one (Geme Mauch). Alou is 59th all-time and eighth among active managers.

Here's the complete list of managers with at least 900 wins. Active managers are bolded: (PL=As Player, P/E=As Pioneer/Executive)

In addition to the eight active managers on the list, Jimy Williams and Art Howe managed last season. 2005 is just the fifth year in baseball history in which there were at least eight managers with 900 wins. The other years were 1986, 1999, 2000, and 2004 (in which there were nine).

That made me wonder if expansion had been extending the average manager's career. Itake a look at the years with the most active managers with 1500 games at the helm:

Note: * 2005 includes the eight men above, Bruce Bochy, Phil Garner, and Buck Showalter (who was 108 games shy of 1500 at the start of the season).

Well, the last few years have featured a number of experienced managers, but a couple of years from the fifties sneak in as well. What if we looked at the number of games that the average manager had under his belt as of a given year?

Well, I guess that tells us that with more managerial jobs, there are more opportunities to have a long career as a manager. However, there also appear to be more opportunities to have a short career as well.

Just ask Tony Pena.