201 E Chapman Ave, Fullerton, CA 92832, United States
Walter attended Fullerton High School.
College/University
Career
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1907
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Walter Johnson, the Senators rookie pitcher in 1907, stretches out his long right arm before a game in National Park in Washington, D.C.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1916
Walter Johnson
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1916
New York City, New York, United States
Walter Johnson pitches for the Washington Senators in the season opener at the Polo Grounds.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1924
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington Senators, shakes hands with his brother, left, before a World Series game in Washington in 1924.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1924
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Walter Johnson poses for a photographer in Washington before a game in 1924.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1924
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Walter Johnson poses for a photographer on the dugout steps for a portrait in Washington before a game in 1924.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1924
Walter Johnson is warming up.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1925
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Calvin Coolidge presents Walter Johnson with a 1924 American League Diploma.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1927
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington Senators, makes a speech during the celebration of his 20th year with the team at Griffith Stadium, Washington, DC, November 1927.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1927
Babe Ruth of the New York Yankees and Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators each pose with their prize-winning roosters.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1942
1 E 161 St, The Bronx, NY 10451, United States
Babe Ruth, New York Yankees favorite from the past, bats against Walter Johnson, during an exhibition between games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators at Yankee Stadium.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1942
1 E 161 St, The Bronx, NY 10451, United States
Babe Ruth, in his former New York Yankees uniform, and Walter Johnson, in his former Washington Senators uniform, head towards the field in Yankee Stadium, New York City, New York, on August 23, 1942.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators warms up his arm before a game.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators poses as he warms up his arm before a game.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington Senators, throws from the mound during a game.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
Washington, District of Columbia, United States
Walter Johnson circa 1914.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators is shown batting.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
N 21st St & W Lehigh Ave, Philadelphia 19132, Pennsylvania, United States
Walter Johnson, working out before a game at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, circa 1915.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington Senators in a pitching stance, circa 1916.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1929
Waist-up portrait of Washington Senators' manager Walter Johnson wearing a team jacket and cap.
Gallery of Walter Johnson
1935
6601 Lexington Ave, Cleveland, OH 44103, United States
Walter Johnson, Cleveland Indians manager, right, and renowned umpire Billy Evans confer before a game at League Park in Cleveland.
Achievements
Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington Senators, poses with a trophy he was awarded, the 1920s.
Walter Johnson, a pitcher for the Washington Senators, makes a speech during the celebration of his 20th year with the team at Griffith Stadium, Washington, DC, November 1927.
Babe Ruth, New York Yankees favorite from the past, bats against Walter Johnson, during an exhibition between games of a doubleheader against the Washington Senators at Yankee Stadium.
Babe Ruth, in his former New York Yankees uniform, and Walter Johnson, in his former Washington Senators uniform, head towards the field in Yankee Stadium, New York City, New York, on August 23, 1942.
Walter Johnson was an American professional baseball player who had perhaps the greatest fastball in the history of the game. A right-handed thrower with a sidearm delivery who batted right as well, Johnson pitched for the Washington Senators of the American League from 1907 through 1927.
Background
Ethnicity:
Despite the fact, that some sources stated that he was of Swedish ancestry, Johnson's ancestors came from the British Isles.
Walter Perry Johnson was born on November 6, 1887 in Humboldt, Kansas, United States. He was the second of six children, and the first of four sons, born into a farming family. According to some sources, his parents, Frank Edwin Johnson and Minnie (Perry) Johnson, were immigrants from Sweden, who first settled in Ohio, then traveled by covered wagon to Kansas.
Education
In 1901, Johnson's family moved to Orange County, California, hoping to earn a better living working in the oil fields. There, Walter attended Fullerton High School and starred on the baseball team. After graduating, he played baseball briefly in Tacoma, Washington, then moved to Weiser, Idaho, and got a job with the Weiser Telephone Company. For $75 a month, he dug holes for telephone poles and pitched for the company's semi-pro team.
Johnson flung the ball with a sidearm delivery that was so deceptive that his fastball seemed to come out of his hip pocket and rocket past the batter. Luckily for hitters, he also had pinpoint control. Word of Johnson's remarkable pitching feats filtered east, through the reports of a traveling cigar salesman who praised the kid's fastball in reports sent to major league teams. The Washington Senators sent an injured catcher, Cliff Blankenship, to scout him. Blankenship signed Johnson to a contract and he joined Washington in August 1907, never having played minor league ball. The Pittsburgh Pirates had wanted to sign him, but refused to guarantee his $9 train fare back home if he didn't make the team. Johnson signed for $350 a month, a $100 bonus and the train fare - and that proved to be the best investment the Senators ever made.
Johnson was 19 when he began pitching for the Senators. In his big-league debut against Detroit, on August 2, he lost, 3-2. During Johnson's first three seasons, he lost 48 games and won only 32. But his talent and stamina were obvious from the start. In 1908, he shut out the New York Highlanders (later known as the Yankees) three times in four days, allowing only 12 hits. He won two more games against the Philadelphia Athletics in the next four days, giving him five victories in eight days.
In 1910, Johnson was the Senators' opening day starter. Before the game he caught a ceremonial "first pitch" from then-President William Howard Taft, starting a tradition of presidential "first pitches" at Washington openers. Johnson won the game with a one-hit shutout. He would go on to win nine openers in front of four different presidents, seven of them shutouts, and started 14 opening games in all. His last, in 1926, was a 15-inning shutout.
In 1910, Johnson sported a 1.35 earned run average, led the league with a remarkable 38 complete games in 42 starts, struck out a league-high 313, and won 25 games. In 1912, he had another fantastic season for the Senators, winning 32 games, losing only 12, and leading the league in earned run average with 1.39 and in strikeouts with 303.
In 1913, at the age of 26, Johnson turned in probably the most dominating season by any major league pitcher in history. "The Big Train" won 36 games, lost 7, had a miniscule 1.09 earned run average, and struck out 243 batters in 346 innings. Johnson completed 11 shutouts and threw 56 consecutive scoreless innings during one stretch. No pitcher ever again won 36 games in a season. For his efforts, Johnson won a new Chalmers automobile as the American League's Most Valuable Player.
From 1910 to 1916, Johnson had seven consecutive seasons of 25 wins or better. His earned run average never rose above 2.30 in any of his first 11 seasons in the major leagues. Johnson led the league in strikeouts in 12 of his 21 seasons, including eight years in a row from 1912 through 1919. Five times he led the American League in earned run average, six times in wins, and six times in complete games. In 1916, he did not allow a home run in 371 innings pitched, a record that will never be broken, because pitchers no longer pitch more than 300 innings in a season. On May 11, 1918, he pitched an 18-inning, 1-0 victory over Chicago.
Johnson completely dominated batters through the 1919 season, which marked the end of the so-called "dead-ball era." But the Senators rarely were a winning team. The victories Johnson might have amassed with a better team would have brought him much closer to Cy Young's record of 511 wins. In the 279 games Johnson lost during his career, his team was shut out in 65 of them. In 27 games, Johnson lost by a score of 1-0. He also won 38 games by the same 1-0 score. Johnson holds the record both for 1-0 victories and 1-0 losses.
Throughout Johnson's career, many better teams made overtures to obtain him. The most serious offer came after the 1914 season, when Chicago of the upstart Federal League offered him $25,000 per season for three years. Johnson was earning a $12,000 annual salary at the time. Washington matched the offer, and Johnson stayed loyal to the woebegone Senators for the rest of his playing days.
In the last eight years of Johnson's career, as Babe Ruth broke home run records and baseball changed to a power-hitting game, Johnson had only two 20-win seasons. His strikeout totals declined markedly as pitchers became less dominant and he entered the waning years of his career. But his determination to win never flagged. On July 1, 1920, Johnson pitched a 12-inning no-hitter, beating Boston 1-0.
In 1924, Johnson started two games and lost twice to the New York Giants, but his team stayed alive and forced a seventh and deciding game. With the seventh game tied in the eighth inning, the Senators brought in Johnson as a reliever. Though he was working on only one day's rest, Johnson pitched four scoreless innings and the Senators won in 12 innings. Even his opponents were impressed.
In 1925, Johnson had 20 wins against only seven defeats and the Senators returned to the World Series. Johnson won his first two starts against the Pittsburgh Pirates, allowing a total of one run. However, he lost the final game, 9-7, when his teammates' errors led to four unearned runs, and the Pirates beat the Senators to win the world championship.
In 1927, Johnson was struck by a line drive during spring training and broke his leg. He tried to pitch wearing a leg brace, but without much success, and he retired after the season.
After his playing days ended, Johnson remained in baseball. In 1929, he became a manager with the Senators. Washington won more than 90 games in three of Johnson's four seasons at the helm but never finished in the first place. Johnson then managed the Cleveland Indians from 1933 through 1935. He returned to Washington as a radio broadcaster in 1939.
In his later years, Johnson dabbled in farming and politics.
In 1938, Walter Johnson was elected as a Montgomery County commissioner. Two years later, he ran for a congressional seat in Maryland's 6th district, but lost to William D. Byron.
Views
Quotations:
"Can I throw harder than Joe Wood? Listen, mister, no man alive can throw any harder than Smoky Joe Wood."
"(Bob) Feller isn't quite as fast as I was."
"I throw as hard as I can when I think I have to throw as hard as I can."
"I was the greenest rookie that ever was. One evening I was standing out on the sidewalk when a stranger approached and said, 'You're famous already kid. See, they've named a hotel for you.' I looked across the street and sure enough, there was a big illuminated sign that read 'Johnson Hotel.' Well, do you know that I was so green that I actually believed the man!"
"Nobody saw it, he (Rogers Hornsby) hit it and it disappeared."
"The beanball is one of the meanest things on Earth and no decent fellow would use it. The beanball is a potential murderer. If I were a batter and thought the pitcher really tried to bean me, I'd be inclined to wait for him outside the park with a baseball bat."
"You can't hit what you can't see."
Personality
Johnson had a reputation as a kindly person. He made many friends in baseball. His honesty, rugged competitiveness, even temper, and sportsmanship were proclaimed.
In a time when baseball was a rowdy sport, Johnson was admired by friend and foe alike for his unflagging sportsmanship. He was just as graceful off the field as on the mound - a refined gentleman who stood out among his boozing, wild-living teammates and opponents. Johnson never drank, smoked, or used profanity.
Walter raised Guernsey cattle and Percheron horses.
Physical Characteristics:
Johnson was a tall, blue-eyed, curly-haired athlete. He was 6 ft 1 inch (185 cm) tall and weighed 200 lb (90 kg).
Walter died of a brain tumor.
Quotes from others about the person
Ty Cobb: "His fastball looked about the size of a watermelon seed and it hissed at you as it passed."
Ty Cobb: "Just speed, raw speed, blinding speed, too much speed."
Shirley Povich: "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."
Addie Joss: "That young fellow is another Cy Young. I never saw a kid with more than he displayed. Of course, he is still green, but when he has a little experience he should be one of the greatest pitchers that ever broke into the game. He has terrific speed and a motion which does not put much strain on his arm and this will all improve as he goes along."
Interests
horse riding
Sport & Clubs
baseball
Connections
On June 24, 1914, Johnson married Hazel Lee Roberts, daughter of Edwin Roberts, a congressman from Nevada. They had six children: Walter, Edwin, Eleanor, Robert, Carolyn, and Barbara. His wife died in 1930 from heatstroke complications.
Walter Johnson: King of the Pitchers
This book represents a biography of Walter Johnson - the hard-throwing, Hall of Fame baseball pitcher for the Washington Senators.
Walter Johnson: A Life
Walter Johnson: A Life by Jack Kavanagh preserves the legacy of baseball's most extraordinary pitcher in this fascinating and timeless biography.