Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #54P: Walter P. "Barney" Johnson Part 1. "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.

Carroll summarizes the dismal end to Walter's great pitching career: Continuing where they had left off the season before (a disappointing 1926 campaign), things went sour from the onset of spring training for the Senators in 1927. In Tampa, Florida, before an exhibition game, Johnson was throwing batting practice to Joe Judge. Judge ripped a line drive back through the middle, striking Johnson in the right leg. The Senators had seen this before, Johnson being dusted by a line drive through the middle. Usually, he rose to his feet, brushed himself off, then, like clockwork, turned in three hundred-plus innings and twenty-five victories. In fact, just a few days before, Judge had lined a ball off Johnson's other leg with no damage done. So used to the scene were Johnson's teammates, and desensitized to the sight of Johnson sprawled out after a hot smash off some seemingly indestructible body part, that jokester coach Al Schacht hustled out to the mound and jokingly gave Johnson an animated ten-count.

This time would be different, though. Just two years removed from his twelfth twenty-win season for the 1925 American League pennant-winners, Johnson would battle back onto the field, but posted just a 5-6 record in eighteen appearances, along with an ugly 5.10 ERA. Johnson turned forty about a month after the end of the season. He never pitched again, though that didn't mean his role with the franchise had ended -- far from it. (Sam Rice by Jeff Carroll.)

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