Walter Johnson

The following article was sent to people on the Bethesda Big Train (Cal
Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League) email list. I trust that there are
no copyright issues involved with reposting it here. If so, mea culpa.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Going on a Train trip
by Brian Heard

Staff Writer
Feb. 9, 2005

The sunshine, delightfully filtering down through the barren tree branches,
seemed fitting, despite the sullen setting. The weather could have been
interpreted as a harbinger for the future of Major League Baseball in the
Washington, D.C. area -- clear, bright, unseasonably warm.

And, as I stood in a remote corner of the Rockville Union Cemetery, a
half-mile from Rockville High School at the intersection of Avery and Old
Baltimore roads, I wondered exactly why I'd come, why I suddenly felt so
moved. I'd just read the surprisingly plain, small headstone: Walter Perry
Johnson; Born: November 6, 1887; Died: December 10, 1946; not singled out by
a big memorial or surrounded by ornate fencing, just another grave among so
many. But as I placed some flowers down and touched the marble stone, a
ripple of butterflies flooded my stomach.

I was standing by the grave of the Walter Johnson. The Big Train (or, as he
was often referred to in his playing days, Big Barney). Irrefutably, the
greatest player in Washington Senators/Nationals history. Probably the best
pitcher ever - 417 wins (2nd all-time), 279 losses (4th all-time), 3,509
strikeouts (9th all-time), 110 shutouts (1st all-time) and a career
earned-run average of 2.17 (11th all-time) in 21 seasons, all with the
Senators. He started 666 games (10th all-time) and completed 531 (4th
all-time) of them. All for a team that had a .462 winning percentage during
his playing years, though they did win the World Series (the only one in
Washington history) in 1924. Other tidbits: Johnson, 6-foot-1, 200 pounds,
collected 34 saves, lost 31 games by a 1-0 score, hit 24 home runs (more
than half in the deadball era - pre-1920) and had a career batting average
of .235 in better than 2,300 at-bats. He was so well respected that he was
named American League MVP twice (1913 and 1924) -- the only pitcher in the
first 20 years the award was given to be so honored.

The late, great Washington Post sports writer Shirley Povich once wrote:
"Let there be no misunderstanding, no delusion, that Walter Johnson is, or
was, a baseball legend. Not only inaccurate is that description, it demeans
him."

Ty Cobb (not known for doling out compliments) said of the Big Train: "His
fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as
it passed."

Johnson's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., reads:
"Conceded to be the fastest ball pitcher in the history of the game." He was
one of the first five -- Johnson, Babe Ruth, Cobb, Honus Wagner and Christy
Mathewson -- inductees into the Hall in 1936.

Modern-day researchers estimate he threw between 97 and 99 miles per hour,
in an era where most fastballs topped out in the mid-80s. Even Johnson knew
he was fast.

"You can't hit, what you can't see," he once quipped.

Johnson, born in Kansas, reared in California, moved to the Washington area
prior to his rookie season in 1907. Senators owner Clark Griffith paid only
$9 for him -- the cost of the train ticket to D.C. He retired after the 1927
season and went on to manage the Senators from 1929-32 (finishing with a
winning record -- 350-264). He owned a non-working farm on Old Georgetown
Road near Bethesda, and was elected as a Montgomery County commissioner in
1938, before dying too young of a brain tumor in 1946. He was universally
considered one of the great gentlemen in, and outside of, the game, not just
a terrific player.

A friend, Jeff Stuart, local author of the book "Twilight Teams," had called
a few weeks earlier to ask if I knew where the Big Train was buried. I
didn't. He did. I was surprised to find out he was so close and I'd never
known. I thought a visit, and some research on the great man, was in order.


So we went together, parking at the first available area up the hill to the
left, in a small dirt lot next to a tall, wire fence bordering the Rockville
Civic Center grounds. Walking directly across the street onto the unkempt
cemetery walkway, the gravel trail bends to the right about 100 yards in. At
the right are two large gravestones; one reads Green, the other Clum. To the
left are woods, the far right a vast expanse of graves. There is no designed
pathway past the grouping of graves surrounding the Green and Clum stones,
but that's we're we headed, down a muddy slope toward an immense, thick tree
stump. There are no signs pointing the way. No markers. But there on the
very edge of the cemetery, in quiet anonymity, rest Walter and his wife
Hazel Lee Johnson. I was glad I'd come.

Baseball is suddenly more important to the area -- spring training for
pitchers (appropriately enough) and catchers begins in another week for the
new Washington Nationals in Viera, Fla. Major League Baseball is back in
town after an absence of more than 30 years. It's a new era, hopefully a
grand new era. But there will never be another Big Train.

Maybe that's why I went to the cemetery that day. Maybe I was so moved
because baseball, more than any other sport, is so tied to its history
(pre-steroid records mean something). And the Big Train made a lot of
history. In the end, I guess I'd made a pilgrimage. I just wanted to say
hello to the greatest pitcher ever, to honor the past before looking ahead
to the future.

Jay Hatfield wrote:

> The following article was sent to people on the Bethesda Big Train (Cal
> Ripken Sr. Collegiate Baseball League) email list. I trust that there are
> no copyright issues involved with reposting it here. If so, mea culpa.
>
>
> Going on a Train trip
> by Brian Heard
>
> Staff Writer
> Feb. 9, 2005
>
> The sunshine, delightfully filtering down through the barren tree branches,
> seemed fitting, despite the sullen setting. The weather could have been
> interpreted as a harbinger for the future of Major League Baseball in the
> Washington, D.C. area -- clear, bright, unseasonably warm.
>
> And, as I stood in a remote corner of the Rockville Union Cemetery, a
> half-mile from Rockville High School at the intersection of Avery and Old
> Baltimore roads, I wondered exactly why I'd come, why I suddenly felt so
> moved. I'd just read the surprisingly plain, small headstone: Walter Perry
> Johnson; Born: November 6, 1887; Died: December 10, 1946; not singled out by
> a big memorial or surrounded by ornate fencing, just another grave among so
> many. But as I placed some flowers down and touched the marble stone, a
> ripple of butterflies flooded my stomach.
>
> I was standing by the grave of the Walter Johnson. The Big Train (or, as he
> was often referred to in his playing days, Big Barney). Irrefutably, the
> greatest player in Washington Senators/Nationals history. Probably the best
> pitcher ever - 417 wins (2nd all-time), 279 losses (4th all-time), 3,509
> strikeouts (9th all-time), 110 shutouts (1st all-time) and a career
> earned-run average of 2.17 (11th all-time) in 21 seasons, all with the
> Senators. He started 666 games (10th all-time) and completed 531 (4th
> all-time) of them. All for a team that had a .462 winning percentage during
> his playing years, though they did win the World Series (the only one in
> Washington history) in 1924. Other tidbits: Johnson, 6-foot-1, 200 pounds,
> collected 34 saves, lost 31 games by a 1-0 score, hit 24 home runs (more
> than half in the deadball era - pre-1920) and had a career batting average
> of .235 in better than 2,300 at-bats. He was so well respected that he was
> named American League MVP twice (1913 and 1924) -- the only pitcher in the
> first 20 years the award was given to be so honored.
>
> The late, great Washington Post sports writer Shirley Povich once wrote:
> "Let there be no misunderstanding, no delusion, that Walter Johnson is, or
> was, a baseball legend. Not only inaccurate is that description, it demeans
> him."
>
> Ty Cobb (not known for doling out compliments) said of the Big Train: "His
> fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as
> it passed."
>
> Johnson's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., reads:
> "Conceded to be the fastest ball pitcher in the history of the game." He was
> one of the first five -- Johnson, Babe Ruth, Cobb, Honus Wagner and Christy
> Mathewson -- inductees into the Hall in 1936.
>
> Modern-day researchers estimate he threw between 97 and 99 miles per hour,
> in an era where most fastballs topped out in the mid-80s. Even Johnson knew
> he was fast.
>
> "You can't hit, what you can't see," he once quipped.
>
> Johnson, born in Kansas, reared in California, moved to the Washington area
> prior to his rookie season in 1907. Senators owner Clark Griffith paid only
> $9 for him -- the cost of the train ticket to D.C. He retired after the 1927
> season and went on to manage the Senators from 1929-32 (finishing with a
> winning record -- 350-264). He owned a non-working farm on Old Georgetown
> Road near Bethesda, and was elected as a Montgomery County commissioner in
> 1938, before dying too young of a brain tumor in 1946. He was universally
> considered one of the great gentlemen in, and outside of, the game, not just
> a terrific player.
>
> A friend, Jeff Stuart, local author of the book "Twilight Teams," had called
> a few weeks earlier to ask if I knew where the Big Train was buried. I
> didn't. He did. I was surprised to find out he was so close and I'd never
> known. I thought a visit, and some research on the great man, was in order.
>
>
> So we went together, parking at the first available area up the hill to the
> left, in a small dirt lot next to a tall, wire fence bordering the Rockville
> Civic Center grounds. Walking directly across the street onto the unkempt
> cemetery walkway, the gravel trail bends to the right about 100 yards in. At
> the right are two large gravestones; one reads Green, the other Clum. To the
> left are woods, the far right a vast expanse of graves. There is no designed
> pathway past the grouping of graves surrounding the Green and Clum stones,
> but that's we're we headed, down a muddy slope toward an immense, thick tree
> stump. There are no signs pointing the way. No markers. But there on the
> very edge of the cemetery, in quiet anonymity, rest Walter and his wife
> Hazel Lee Johnson. I was glad I'd come.
>
> Baseball is suddenly more important to the area -- spring training for
> pitchers (appropriately enough) and catchers begins in another week for the
> new Washington Nationals in Viera, Fla. Major League Baseball is back in
> town after an absence of more than 30 years. It's a new era, hopefully a
> grand new era. But there will never be another Big Train.
>
> Maybe that's why I went to the cemetery that day. Maybe I was so moved
> because baseball, more than any other sport, is so tied to its history
> (pre-steroid records mean something). And the Big Train made a lot of
> history. In the end, I guess I'd made a pilgrimage. I just wanted to say
> hello to the greatest pitcher ever, to honor the past before looking ahead
> to the future.
>
Great post. Thanks.
--
FSogol