Randy Johnson biography
Randy Johnson, in full Randall David Johnson, (born September 10, 1963, Walnut Creek, California, U.S.), American skilled baseball participant who—with 5 profession Cy Young Awards (1995, 1999–2002) as one of the best pitcher in both the American or National League—is taken into account one of many best pitchers within the sport’s historical past.
Johnson excelled in each basketball and baseball by highschool. He earned a scholarship to the University of Southern California, the place he performed basketball for a number of years and starred on the baseball group from 1983 to 1985. The National League (NL) Montreal Expos drafted him after his junior season, and he made his main league debut on September 15, 1988.
The bodily imposing Johnson shortly constructed a popularity because the pitcher main leaguers most feared going through. His distinctive top—at 6 toes 10 inches (2.08-metres) he was for a time the tallest participant in main league historical past—and low supply angle solely elevated the problem of hitting his fastballs (which may generally attain 102 mph [164 km/hr]) and hard-breaking sliders (pitches that seem like heading towards a left-handed batter earlier than out of the blue veering towards the plate). The novelty of his top at first overshadowed Johnson’s work on the mound, however, as his pitching improved, the accolades elevated. He was named to the primary of his 10 All-Star Games in 1990 as a member of the American League (AL) Seattle Mariners, who had acquired him from the Expos the earlier season. Johnson led the AL in strikeouts for 4 consecutive years (1992–95), and in 1995 he gained the AL Cy Young Award. Johnson and the Mariners administration started to have contract disagreements regularly, and he was traded to the Houston Astros at the1998 buying and selling deadline.
A free agent on the finish of the 1998 season, Johnson signed with the NL Arizona Diamondbacks, the place he led the NL in earned run common, innings pitched, and strikeouts on his solution to the 1999 NL Cy Young Award. Johnson gained Cy Youngs in every of the next three seasons, however his most spectacular feat occurred on the 2001 World Series, the place he tied a file with three wins in a single World Series and earned Most Valuable Player honours, together with fellow pitcher Curt Schilling, whereas guiding the Diamondbacks to their first championship. In 2004 he grew to become the oldest participant to pitch an ideal sport and the seventeenth pitcher to perform the feat.
After pitching for 2 seasons with the New York Yankees, Johnson was traded in 2007 to Arizona for a second stint with the Diamondbacks. The following 12 months he recorded his 4,673rd strikeout, passing Roger Clemens for second place on the all-time strikeouts checklist—behind solely Nolan Ryan. Johnson signed with the San Francisco Giants after the 2008 season. On June 4, 2009, he recorded the three hundredth victory of his profession, a landmark that had been reached by solely 23 different big-league pitchers in additional than 120 years of American skilled baseball. Johnson retired in January 2010. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015.