Walter Johnson: The Dominance of Baseball's Big Train

On July twenty second, nineteen twenty three, one of the greatest pitchers that's often forgot about, Walter Johnson becomes the first pitcher to ever strike out three thousand batters. And that's not all he did, as he continued his success throughout his career, putting up numbers that many thought were impossible in the modern era. Here's the story behind Walter Johnson today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Even Reese, your guide to a deep dive into sports history every day. In today's trivia question to listen out for is what record does Walter Johnson still hold in Major League Baseball after almost one hundred years since he last played now. Walter Johnson was born in Kansas in eighteen eighty seven to a big farm family, and he was the second of six kids. But when he became a teenager, his family moved from Kansas to California in search of a better life. And this is where Walter really made a name for himself in baseball. As with his high school team, he one time struck out twenty seven batters in a fifteen inning game, and he continued the success when he joined the Idaho State League where he worked for a telephone company and played for their team, and he was spotted by a Washington Senator scout and in nineteen oh seven he finally signed with the Washington Senators at the age of nineteen. Now, the crazy thing is, if you ever watched Walter Johnson pitch, he has the most effortless pitching motion, very different than one you would see today. His style of pitching is mainly with his elastic arm and doesn't use a whole lot of his lower body, just takes an easy step and has his arm to about a three fourths throw with not a hold a lot of elbow. And even with this unique unorthodox style of throwing as it would be considered today, it's estimated he threw the ball anywhere between ninety one and ninety five miles an hour at the time, which at the time they didn't have radar gums to really tell the exact time, but they would use estenate based on how long the ball took to leave his hand to the catcher's mint. Now, the reason why that is significant is because at the time pitchers were pitching closer to eighty miles an hour rather than in the nineties what were used to today. We had just come into the modern era pitching which had changed a lot, and his fastball was very overwhelming. As Ty Cobb once said, Walter Johnson was the most threatening sight he had ever saw on the ball field and it was the most powerful arm that had ever been turned loose in a ballpark. Now, one thing he did really well now, as similar to a previous episode we did on Nolan Ryan, was he pitched well despite his team not being that great, which is an issue that Nolan Ryan also had. And we also talked about the Washington Senators in in previous episode where they bounced around and eventually ended up becoming the Atlanta Braves. Despite this challenge with the team, he had twelve seasons where he won over twenty games, including ten he did in a row and twice he topped thirty wins in nineteen twelve in nineteen thirteen, where he had an earned run average of one point four in nineteen thirteen, which is the fourth lowest ever recorded at the time and is still today the sixth lowest RARA for a season. In nineteen thirteen, he won thirty six games, which was equivalent to forty percent of the total wins for the team. But after pitching for over seventeen years in the major leagues, the Washington Senators actually put everything together and made it to the World Series in nineteen twenty four, allowing him the chance to pitch to win championship. But he didn't have success, as he lost those first two games, and in the deciding Game seven, he came back to pitch in relief, pitching four scoreless innings in a game that went to extra innings, giving Washington and Johnson their first World Series title. Now, what set Walter Johnson apart from other pitchers was his strikeout ability. Yes, he had a strong arm, which allowed him the chance to strike out even more hitters in The most strikeouts he ever had in the season was three hundred and thirteen strikeouts, and he averaged over one hundred and sixty seven strikeouts his entire career, and he finished his career with three thousand, five hundred and eight strikeouts, a record that stood until nineteen seventy three, when it was passed by Nolan Ryan. He has since been passed by seven other players, all of which are in the Hall of Fame except for Roger Clemens. But he still sits at number nine all on the strikeout list, and he joined Cy Young as becoming the only pitchers to ever win more than four hundred games, as he finished his career with four hundred and seventeen wins behind Cy Young's five hundred and fifty one, and the current leader in the Major League Baseball. In Major League Baseball for wins is Justin Verlander had two hundred and sixty, and he finished his career with one hundred and ten shutouts, which means you completed the entire game and did not give up a single run, a record that he still holds to this day, in one that will likely never be broken as baseball has changed as pitcher's pitch much less complete games. So when his career was finished, he had a career ERA of two point seventeen, was a two time MVP, won the Pitching Triple Crown three times, leading in wins, RA and strikeouts, led the American League in strikeout for twelve seasons, and despite having one hundred and ten career shutouts, only pitched one no hitter in his life on July first, nineteen twenty. But he was not done when he retired in nineteen twenty seven, after twenty one years of playing baseball. He moved right into managing the Washington Senators and would move on to manage the Cleveland Indians for a couple of years as well, having a winning percentage as a manager of five hundred and fifty and he was winning the original Hall of Fame members in the inaugural class along with Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth Hornis Wagner, Christy Matthewson. And he deserved to be the best pitcher. Now he's often forgot about in pitching lore, as Cy Young has the award named after him for the best pitcher in the league and Walter Jones. Most of his records have been broken and only has that one championship, so his legacy isn't as strong. But when you dive into who he was as a player, a guy that pitched as often as he could with little to no injuries and is still on the top list for baseball players of all time, but we often forget about him when listing the best pictures that ever lived. But even more so, he was a great sportsman and even a friendlier friend, as he would give up hits to his friends regularly to allow them to enjoy the game as well. And that's a little bit about Walter Johnson today. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have a topic you would like us to cover, please leave us a review wherever you're listening, or go to Daily sportsistory dot com leave us a voicemail or a message there. What sport oor event you want us to cover and come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports history. And did you catch the answer to today's trivia question what record does Walter Jones still hold to this day? And the answer is complete game shutouts with one hundred and ten, a record that will probably never be broken.