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When real baseball fans talk about the best pitchers of all time, the conversation should start with Walter Johnson and go from there. Sure, Sandy Koufax, Greg Maddux, Cy Young, Tom Seaver and Christy Mathewson have to come up early in the conversation, and all have their case, but the first power pitcher to come along and combine generational dominance with superhuman longevity was The Big Train.
Johnson finished with a career record of 417-279 and if you’re one of those people who complain about Nolan Ryan’s record being affected by the poor teams he played on, don’t sell the Washington Senators short. In nine of Johnson’s 21 seasons, the Senators were one of the three worst teams in the American League. Johnson came into the league at the age of 19 and by the time he was 35 years old, his Senators had put up a grand total of five winning seasons and zero postseason appearances.
About that.
When Johnson and the Senators won the American League in 1924, Major League Baseball finally was able to showcase the big righty in the World Series. The regular season MVP posted a 23-7 record with a 2.70 ERA and was predictably on the mound for Game 1 of the Fall Classic. However, the Giants not only beat Johnson in Game 1, but they also took it to him in Game 5 to go up 3-2 in the series. The Giants squeaked out a 2-1 win in Game 6 to set up the decisive Game 7. In what may have been the first “bullpen game” in a huge spot, the immortal Curly Ogden started for the Senators and lasted two batters. If you think manager Bucky Harris was going to let the season end without sending the best pitcher in baseball history out there one more time, you’d be sadly mistaken. Continue below to see how that turned out for Bucky and The Big Train and why the game landed in The Stud 400.
Before we move on to this week’s edition of The Stud 400, here’s a look at the last five entries as we count down the 400 greatest moments in Major League Baseball history:
230: Hiram Bithorn becomes MLB’s first Puerto Rican-born player (1942)
229: Jose Bautista’s bat flip (2015)
228: Jim Abbott’s no-hitter (1993)
227: Bill terry hits .400 (1930)
226: Ty Cobb beats up a fan (1912)
And now, here’s Episode XXXVI of The Stud 400.
225. Cy Young wins 511th game (1911)
225. Cy Young wins 511th game (1911)Any baseball fan worth his salt recognizes certain magic numbers without any context. Mention the numbers 715, 56, .406 or 61 to any baseball fan born before 2000 and they should be able to immediately attach the proper meaning to them. Another magic number in that group is 511, a number owned by a man named Denton. Among the most unbreakable records in sports, Cy Young’s 511th win came in 1911, his 22nd Major League season. It was also his 76th career shutout. The win came in Young’s fourth-to-last MLB game as a member of the Boston National League team; they would go by the Braves in 1912. Young scattered nine hits against the Pirates and one of the final batters he retired was fellow immortal Honus Wagner. Young made three more starts after his 511th win but lost them all. His final record was 511-315 and he holds the most wins and losses in MLB history. Records that will never be broken.
224. Dodgers & Red Sox play longest World Series game (2018)
224. Dodgers & Red Sox play longest World Series game (2018)In 2018, I had the opportunity to go to the World Series in Los Angeles. I chose to go to Game 4 with the idea that Boston had already won games one and two, so I had the potential to see a World Series sweep if things fell the right way. When I showed up to Game 4, everyone was still talking about Game 3 and for good reason. It was the longest game by time and innings in World Series history. The game lasted 18 innings and an incomprehensible seven hours and twenty minutes. It blew away the previous record for innings (14 in 2005 and 1916) and time (five hours and 41 minutes in 2005). The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the third and the Red Sox tied it in the eighth on a Jackie Bradley home run. The game stayed 1-1 until the 13th. The Sox took a lead in the 13th, but the Dodgers tied it back up on an unearned run with two outs in the bottom of the frame.
The game finally came to a dramatic end when Max Muncy homered off Nate Eovaldi leading off the bottom of the 18th. It was Eovaldi’s seventh inning of relief work. The home run was the first walk off World Series home run for the Dodgers since Kirk Gibson’s in 1988. Each team used nine pitchers. Mookie Betts, Xander Bogaerts, Justin Turner and Muncy each had eight plate appearances. Even with all the at bats and plate appearances, no player had more than two hits. All crazy stats indeed, but perhaps the wildest fact about Game 3 of the 2018 World Series is that that single game took more time to complete than the entire 1939 World Series. Wild.
223. Game 7 of the 1924 World Series (1924)
223. Game 7 of the 1924 World Series (1924)Walter Johnson is perhaps the greatest pitcher to ever step on a mound, but it took him 17 seasons to appear in a World Series. When he finally did, his fingerprints were all over the seven-game classic in positive and negative ways. Johnson was a tough luck loser in Game 1 after he allowed just four runs over 14 innings. In a pivotal Game 5, the Giants knocked The Big Train around to take a 3-2 lead in the series. The Senators bounced back to win Game 6, setting up a decisive Game 7. Back then, there were no off days in the World Series, so Johnson had pitched 22 innings over the previous six days. By no means did that make him unavailable for Game 7 though.
The Senators were down 3-1 to the Giants with four outs left, but a Bucky Harris bad-hop two-out single in the eighth tied the game. Two batters earlier, Benny Tate had pinch hit for pitcher Firpo Marberry and when the Senators took the field for the ninth, Johnson emerged from the bullpen to try to deliver the moribund franchise their first World Series. Six of the first seven batters Johnson faced—Freddie Lindstrom, Frankie Frisch, Ross Youngs, George Kelly, Hack Wilson and Travis Jackson—were Hall of Famers and only Frisch registered a hit. Johnson ended up pitching four shutout innings in relief and was even on base in the bottom of the 12th when Earl McNeely doubled home Muddy Ruel to deliver the Senators, and Johnson, their only World Series victory in one of the all-time legendary Fall Classic games.
222. Earl Weaver vs. Bill Haller (1980)
222. Earl Weaver vs. Bill Haller (1980)Today’s baseball games feature many in-game interviews with players and managers and nearly all are pointless nonsense that don’t bring anything to the table. It’s mostly forgettable, sanitized sport-speak to appease whatever jackass pushed to bring this to broadcasts at the behest of nobody. Having personnel mic’d up can provide memorable moments though and that was never more apparent than the legendary exchange between Orioles manager Earl Weaver and umpire Bill Haller in 1980. No amount of words can do justice to the performances of Weaver or Haller, so please take a few minutes to watch the video. You will not be disappointed. If you’ve seen it before, you haven’t forgotten it. If you haven’t it, makes the Terry Collins vs. Tom Hallion “ass in the jackpot” argument look like a kindergarten Read Across America event.
221. Ted Williams homers on eephus pitch (1946)
221. Ted Williams homers on eephus pitch (1946)1946 was a historic season as baseball began to emerge from a WWII era that put the status of the sport in peril. Ted Williams, along with many other players, returned from service that season and if you know Williams’ history, you know that he didn’t miss a beat after missing three seasons. The 1946 All-Star Game was held at Fenway Park and Williams represented the Sox along with Johnny Pesky, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr, Dave Ferriss, Mickey Harris, Rudy York and Hal Wagner. The American League trounced the National League 12-0, but that doesn’t mean the game wasn’t entertaining. Williams homered in the fourth to give the AL a 2-0 lead and by the time he came up in the eighth, the AL was up 9-0. Williams was set to face Pirates pitcher Rip Sewell, who was credited–perhaps incorrectly–with inventing the eephus pitch. Famously, he had never given up a home run on the pitch.
With the game outcome already decided, Williams urged Sewell to throw him an eephus pitch. To the delight of the crowd, Sewell obliged. Williams fouled off the first eephus he faced and then asked for another. Again, Sewell floated an arcing pitch towards the icon and this time Williams blasted it into the stands. Incidentally, Williams later admitted that he took steps towards the mound before swinging and was out of the box when he made contact. But that didn’t matter. Was it the most impactful play in baseball history? Not even close. However, it’s a fantastic part of the fabric of the history of baseball and that’s what The Stud 400 is all about.
Stay tuned for the next episode of The Stud 400 when we go to the videotape, examine one of the most infamous postseason performances ever and revisit one of the great “what if” careers. You’ll be spittin’ mad if you miss next week’s installment of The Stud 400!
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