Randy Johnson

He was born Randall David Johnson in Walnut Creek, California, on September 10, 1963. The son of Bud and Carol Johnson, he boasted a strong throwing arm as a boy but lacked ball control. To improve control, Johnson and his dad marked out a strike zone on the family's garage door. The young Johnson would hurl tennis balls at the door and later check to see how many balls had left their mark within the zone. When he was old enough, Johnson signed up to play in his local Little League but got off to a shaky start when he showed up late for his first game. To make matters worse, he could not locate his team and returned home in tears.

Things looked up for Johnson during his years at Livermore High School, where he developed into a star in two sports—baseball and basketball. In basketball he twice led the East Bay Athletic League in scoring. It was in baseball, however, that Johnson truly made his mark. As a starting pitcher for the Livermore nine, he concluded his high school baseball career in a blaze of glory, pitching a perfect game at the end of his senior year. After graduating from Livermore High in 1982, Johnson went to the University of Southern California on a combined baseball-basketball scholarship. He played both sports his freshman and sophomore years but decided to focus exclusively on baseball his third year at USC.