Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Thanks for posting rc. No worries regarding timing -- always a good time to show a great card.

Player #54R: Walter P. "Barney" Johnson. "The Big Train". Pitcher for the Washington Senators in 1907-1927. 417 wins and 34 saves in 21 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. 1913 and 1924 AL Most Valuable Player. 3-time triple crown. 6-time AL wins leader. 5-time AL ERA leader. 12-time AL strikeout leader. He had a career ERA of 2.17 in 5,914.1 innings pitched. He pitched a no-hitter in 1920. He holds the MLB record with 110 career shutouts. MLB All-Time Team. Inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame in 1936. One of his best seasons was 1913 as he posted a record of 36-7 with a 1.14 ERA in 346 innings pitched.

Deveaux addresses Walter's advent as Washington manager: It was perhaps inevitable that the man Clark Griffith would settle on (to replace the departed Bucky Harris as manager) was Walter Johnson. The Big Train signed a three-year contract at $25,000 a year to manage the Senators, on October 15, 1928, a year to the day following his retirement as a player. Griffith had succeeded in convincing Newark owner Paul Block to give Walter his release. Block acknowledged that Griff had been instrumental in delivering Johnson to Newark in the first place, and reluctantly agreed to grant the Old Fox the favor.

Walter Johnson, Griffith realized, may have been too nice to manage a big-league ballclub, particularly in these more promiscuous times. But Walter, who did not drink nor smoke, definitely had the respect of his peers. And he had shown how tough he could be by suspending some of his Newark players in his one season as a manager. The Big Train had known no equal as a player and by anyone's scorecard in the game of life, very few as a person, and the hopes of baseball fans around the nation were with him. In hiring Walter Johnson, Clark Griffith scored a public relations coup and absolved himself of a great deal of criticism for having dropped Bucky Harris. (The Washington Senators by Tom Deveaux.)

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