WALTER JOHNSON

'Walter Perry Johnson' (November 6, 1887 – December 10, 1946), nicknamed '"The Big Train"', was an American righthanded pitcher in Major League Baseball between 1907 and 1927. One of the most celebrated players in baseball history, Johnson established several pitching records, some of which which remained unbroken for more than a half-century.

Contents

Early life

Baseball career

Additional facts and details

Statistics

See also

Reference

External links

Early life

Walter Johnson was born the second of six children to Frank and Minnie Johnson on a rural farm four miles west of Humboldt, Kansas.^[1] Before he reached his fourteenth birthday in 1901, his family moved to California's Orange County, where he attended Fullerton High School. In July 1907, while he was working for the local telephone company and pitching for Weiser, Idaho in the semi-pro Idaho State League, Johnson was spotted by a talent scout and, at the age of nineteen, signed a contract with the Washington Nationals (later Washington Senators, now Minnesota Twins).

Baseball career

Johnson won renown as the premier power pitcher of his era. Ty Cobb recalled his first encounter with the rookie fastballer:
:"On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was only a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington. Evidently, manager Pongo Joe Cantillon of the Nats had picked a rube out of the cornfields of the deepest bushes to pitch against us... He was a tall, shambling galoot of about twenty, with arms so long they hung far out of his sleeves, and with a sidearm delivery that looked unimpressive at first glance... One of the Tigers imitated a cow mooing, and we hollered at Cantillon: 'Get the pitchfork ready, Joe-- your hayseed's on his way back to the barn.'
:...The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him... every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park."
Yankees outfielder Birdie Cree said the only way to time Johnson's fastball was "when you see the arm start forward, swing."
Although a lack of precision instruments prevented accurate measurement of his fastball, Johnson may well have thrown over 100 miles per hour. This speed would be exceptional even today, but it was virtually unique in Johnson's day, with the possible exception of Smoky Joe Wood. Unusually, Johnson pitched with a sidearm motion, whereas power pitchers are normally associated with a straight-overhand delivery.
The overpowering fastball was the primary reason for Johnson's exceptional statistics, especially his fabled strikeout totals. Johnson's record total of 3,509 strikeouts stood for more than 55 years until Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, and Gaylord Perry (in that order) all surpassed it in 1983. Johnson is now 9th on the all-time strikeout list, but his total must be understood in its proper context. Among his pre-World War II contemporaries, only two men were within a thousand strikeouts of Johnson: runner-up Cy Young with 2,803 (more than 800 behind) and Tim Keefe at 2,562. Bob Feller, whose war-shortened career began in 1936, later ended up with 2,581.

As a righthanded pitcher for the Washington Nationals/Senators, Walter Johnson won 417 games, the second most by any pitcher in history (after Cy Young, who won 511). He and Young are the only pitchers to have won 400 games.
In a 21-year career, Johnson had twelve 20-win seasons, including ten in a row. Twice, he topped thirty wins (33 in 1912 and 36 in 1913). Johnson's record includes 110 shutouts, the most in baseball history. Johnson had a 38-26 record in games decided by a 1-0 score; both his win total and his losses in these games are major league records. On September 4, 5 and 7, 1908, he shut out the New York Yankees in three consecutive games.
Three times, Johnson won the triple crown for pitchers (1913, 1918 and 1924). Johnson twice won the American League Most Valuable Player Award (1913, 1924), a feat accomplished since by only two other pitchers, Carl Hubbell in 1933 and 1936 and Hal Newhouser in 1944 and 1945.
His earned run average of 1.14 in 1913 was the fourth lowest ever at the time he recorded it; it remains the sixth-lowest today. It could have been lower if not for one of manager Clark Griffith's traditions. For the last game of the season, Griffith often treated the fans to a farce game. Johnson actually played center field that game until he was brought into pitch. He allowed two hits before he was taken out of the game. The next pitcher - who was actually a career catcher - allowed both runners to score. The official scorekeeper ignored the game, but later, Johnson was charged with those two runs, raising his ERA from 1.09 to 1.14.
Although he usually pitched for losing teams during his career, Johnson finally led the Washington Nationals/Senators to the World Series in 1924, his 18th year in the American League. Johnson lost the first and fifth game of the 1924 World Series, but became the hero by pitching four scoreless innings of relief in the seventh and deciding game, winning in the 12th inning. Washington returned to the World Series the following season, but Johnson's experience was close to the inverse: two early wins, followed by a Game Seven loss.
Although his Hall of Fame plaque reads that he pitched 'for many years with a losing team,' during his career the Senators finished in the first division 11 times, and the second division 10 times. In Johnson's first five seasons, Washington finished last twice and next-to-last three times. But they came close to winning the pennant in 1912 as well as the following year, which were Johnson's two 30-win seasons. Then, for the next decade, they typically finished in the middle of the pack before their back-to-back pennants.
Johnson was a good hitter for a pitcher, compiling a career batting average of .235, including a record .433 average in 1925. He also made 13 appearances in the outfield during his career. He hit over .200 in 13 of his 21 seasons as a hitter, and actually hit 12 doubles and a triple in 130 at bats in 1917. In a season where Johnson had 28 wins, he also had more home runs (3) than Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner or Napoleon Lajoie all Hall of Fame hitters.
Johnson had a reputation as a kindly person, and made many friends in baseball. As reported in ''The Glory of Their Times'', Sam Crawford was one of Johnson's good friends, and sometimes in non-critical situations, Johnson would ease up so Crawford would hit well against him. This would vex Crawford's teammate, Ty Cobb, who could not understand how Crawford could hit the great Johnson so well. Johnson was also friendly with Babe Ruth, despite Ruth's having hit some of his longest home runs off him at Griffith Stadium.
In 1928, he began his career as a manager in the minor leagues, taking up residence at 32 Maple Terrace, Millburn, New Jersey, and managing the Newark team of the International League. He continued on to the major leagues, managing the Washington Nationals/Senators (1929-1932), and finally the Cleveland Indians (1933-1935). Johnson also served as a radio announcer for the Senators during the 1939 season.
One of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, Walter Johnson retired to Germantown, Maryland, and was elected Montgomery County commissioner in 1938. In 1940, he received the Republican nomination for U.S. Congress from Maryland's 6th congressional district, subsequently losing to Democrat William D. Byron by a 60,037 to 52,258 vote margin.
In the remaining six years of his life, Walter Johnson gave his full efforts to patriotic public appearances at war bond rallies. He died of a brain tumor in Washington, D.C., five weeks after his 59th birthday, and was interred in Rockville, Maryland's Rockville Union Cemetery.

Additional facts and details

Walter Johnson High School in Bethesda, Maryland has been named for him. The monument to him that once stood outside Griffith Stadium has been moved to the school's campus.
He was also called "Sir Walter" and "the White Knight" because of his gentlemanly gamesmanship, and "Old Barney" later in his career. In 1985, the rock musician Jonathan Richman recorded a song entitled "Walter Johnson" that celebrated Johnson's kindness.
In 1999, he ranked number 4 on ''The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, the highest-ranked pitcher. Later that year, he was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Johnson's gentle nature was legendary, and to this day he is held up as an example of good sportsmanship while his name has become synonymous with friendly competition. This attribute worked to Johnson's disadvantage in the case of fellow Hall of Famer Ty Cobb. Virtually all batters were concerned about being hit by Johnson's fastball, and many would not "dig in" at the plate because of that concern. Cobb realized that the good-hearted Johnson was privately nervous about the possibility of seriously injuring a batsman. Almost alone among his peers, Cobb would actually stand closer to the plate than usual when facing Johnson.
Johnson's rookie season was Cobb's third, and Johnson retired one year before Cobb. Cobb faced Johnson at bat more times in their overlapping careers than any other hitter-pitcher combination in major league history.
Johnson was immortalized in the poem "Lineup for Yesterday, by Ogden Nash, thus:
J is for Johnson.

The Big Train in his prime,

So fast he could throw

Three strikes at a time.

Statistics

'Career Statistics:'

''Hitting''

G	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	R	RBI	BB	SO	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
933	2,324	547	94	41	24	241	255	110	251	.235	.266	.342	0.608

''Pitching''

W	L	WP	GP	GS	CG	Sh	SV	IP	BB	SO	ERA	WHIP
417	279	.599	802	666	531	110	34	5,914.1	1,363	3,509	2.17	1.06

See also

★ 300 win club

★ 3000 strikeout club

★ List of Major League Baseball leaders in career wins

★ List of Major League Baseball ERA champions

★ List of Major League Baseball no-hitters

★ Triple Crown

★ List of Major League Baseball strikeout champions

★ List of Major League Baseball wins champions

★ MLB All-Time Hit Batsmen List

★ Top 100 strikeout pitchers of all time

★ MLB all-time leaders in home runs by pitchers

★ Major League Baseball titles leaders

Reference

1. http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016600.html

Thomas, Henry W. (1995). ''Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train''. Washington, D.C.: Phenom Press. ISBN 0964543907

External links

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★ Find-A-Grave

★ virginia.edu - Walter Johnson play-by-play for the Washington Senators game on September 21, 1939]

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Accomplishments