Randy Johnson Biography - Born In Walnut Creek, California, Drafted By Montreal Expos In 1985, Chronology, Grief Strengthens His Game - CONTACT INFORMATION, SELECTED WRITINGS BY JOHNSON:
baseball earned winner six
1963-
American baseball player
Standing at least a head taller than most of his fellow players, Randy Johnson is one of the tallest players ever to play in Major League Baseball (MLB). At six feet, ten inches, Johnson's towering stature has earned him the nicknames "Big Unit" and "Big Bird." But it's not Johnson's height but his incredible pitching skills that have earned him the greatest fame. Johnson first won glory as baseball's "strikeout king." And he continues to hurl 100-mile-an-hour fastballs and sliders that confound batters, but he also boasts one of the best earned-run averages (ERAs) in MLB history. As compelling a force as
Randy Johnson
he is on the pitching mound, Johnson is surprisingly modest, avoiding the spotlight away from the game whenever possible. After nearly fifteen years in the game, Johnson was still going strong in the early years of the new millennium, driven by a quest for perfection. As he told AskMen.com, "The one thing that keeps me going is [that] I'm never content with anything…. If I was to retire today, I'd like to think this was my best year. But I'd like to think [that] with hard work and determination, I could get better in certain categories." A five-time winner of the Cy Young Award, Johnson trails only Roger Clemens, a six-time winner. Johnson won the award four years in a row (1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002).
CONTACT INFORMATION
Address: Randy Johnson, c/o Arizona Diamondbacks, P.O. Box 2095, Phoenix, AZ 85001. Phone: (602)462-6500.
SELECTED WRITINGS BY JOHNSON:
(With Tom House) Fit to Pitch, Human Kinetics, 1996.
Additional Topics
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 …
Johnson entered the Major League Baseball (MLB) draft in 1985 and was selected by the Montreal Expos in the second round. For the next three years he pitched for a number of minor league teams in the Expos' farm system. Late in the 1988 season, the Expos called Johnson up to the majors, where he did well for the remainder of the regular season, going 3-0 with an earned-run average (ERA) of …
Johnson's mother convinced him not to leave baseball. To remind him of his father, he drew a cross and the word "Dad" on the palm of his glove. When troubled by feelings of weakness on the pitcher's mound, he would glance at these symbols. "My heart got bigger," Johnson told Sports Illustrated. "After my dad died, I was convinced I could get through…
In the struggle to overcome his problems with ball control, Johnson got some valuable tips from world-famous pitching authority Tom House during the early 1990s. At the time House was pitching coach for the Texas Rangers. To show his gratitude for House's help, Johnson later wrote the foreword to House's Fit to Pitch, published by Human Kinetics in 1996. House, who holds a Ph.D. in p…
In 1995 Johnson posted an 18-2 record with an ERA of 2.48, earning him his first Cy Young Award. Even more significantly, Johnson helped the Mariners make it to the playoffs where Seattle upset the New York Yankees in five games, largely on the strength of Johnson's brilliant relief performance in the fifth and deciding game. Sidelined by injury for most of 1996, Johnson bounced back in 199…
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