SEATTLE (AP) -On a late July night nearly 11 years ago in the middle of a game with the New York Yankees, Lou Piniella hung up the phone in the dugout of the old Kingdome and walked over to Randy Johnson.
With a tap on the shoulder and a whisper in his ear, Piniella informed the Big Unit his days with the Seattle Mariners were over.
“Awkward,” Ken Griffey Jr. said Friday of the in-game trade that ended Johnson’s nine-year run as the most dominant pitcher in Mariners’ history. “I think anyone that gets traded during a middle of a game, it’s a little awkward.”
at into baseball power.
Fast forward more than a decade to Friday night, when an aging, 45-year-old Big Unit returned to Seattle in search of win No. 299 in likely his final appearance in the city where he developed into a frightening menace for batters to face.
The theatrical scripting of Johnson’s return would only be more sensational if Johnson were going for his 300th win and if Griffey were in the lineup. Instead, this was Johnson’s second attempt at 299, and Griffey watched from the Mariners’ dugout.
“He’s been good on the club, with the younger pitchers. He’s pitched some good games and he’s had some that weren’t so good,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “But overall … he’s done all we’ve asked.”
This wasn’t Johnson’s first trip back to the mound in Seattle. He returned during the 1999 season with the Arizona Diamondbacks. He also made two starts with the New York Yankees in Seattle during his two seasons pitching for them.
associated with Seattle baseball as Griffey’s majestic home run swings.
“It was like a semi day off, just a few sprints to hit and to your position,” Griffey said. “He was fun to watch. A guy throwing that hard, 120, 130 pitches some days.”
And no one will forget Johnson’s complete-game victory over the California Angels in a one-game playoff in 1995 to determine the AL West champion. The image of Johnson being mobbed after striking out Tim Salmon to clinch Seattle’s first division title was trumped only a few days later when Johnson came jogging out of the bullpen to throw three innings of relief in Game 5 of the AL Division Series against the Yankees that Seattle won in 11 innings on Edgar Martinez’s now-famous double to score Griffey.
Those memories were why fans cheered Johnson when he walked from the bullpen before Friday night’s game and gave him a smattering of applause as he took the mound in the bottom of the first.
“You can see it. Even after 22, 23 years in baseball he still got it in him. He’s still got the stuff, he’s still got the winning mentality,” said reigning NL Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum, who was 4 years old when Johnson made his major league debut in September 1988 and watched Johnson up close growing up in the Seattle area.
a five-time Cy Young winner. Wakamatsu was the catcher for a select all-star team in the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 1980s. He often found himself “retrieving” more of Johnson’s wild pitches than catching strikes as the big lefty had the velocity but lacked the control even back then.
“Just to be able to catch him back then and reflect is pretty special,” Wakamatsu said.
Add A Comment