From the archives: New Hall of Famer Randy Johnson

Posted on July 24, 2015

Randy Johnson of the Seattle Mariners pitches during a game against the Oakland Athletics at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, California in 1994. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

This week I have been blogging about the incredible class of ballplayers who will be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York on Sunday. I have already written about Craig Biggio, John Smoltz, and Pedro Martinez. I have saved the best for last, and today I am writing about the Big Unit, Randy Johnson. I am not going to throw a bunch of statistics at you, but the big lefty who hails from Livermore, California (about 10 miles from my house) was the most dominant pitcher of his time. He won over 300 games and took home FIVE Cy Young Awards during his incredible career that began in Montreal and ended in San Francisco. Because he finished his playing days as a Giant in 2009 I was able to photograph him many times during his final season, so the set of pictures I put together has a real nice ending. I started shooting Johnson in the early 1990’s when he would come to Oakland as a member of the Seattle Mariners to play the A’s. It was always a big deal to get him pitching a day game, outside, on slide film. Since the Mariners played in the Kingdome all the pictures of Johnson in Seattle had to be shot on grainy color negative film. Getting the chance to shoot him during the daytime on beautiful Fujichrome was an EVENT and photographers from all over the west coast would flock to the Coliseum on those special days.

One of my favorite memories of shooting Johnson was on June 24, 1997 when Sports Illustrated sent me up to Seattle to shoot him pitching a night game at home against the Oakland A’s for a big story about him. I was working with SI legend John Biever, which was a thrill on it’s own. Getting the chance to shoot Johnson in his home park was so much fun. My job was to shoot him from the outfield and other different angles inside the VERY DARK and gloomy domed stadium. It was a crazy game that the A’s somehow won 4-1, despite the fact that Johnson struck out 19 batters while throwing 142 pitches over 9 innings in front of 34,801. The big story of the game was the mammoth home run A’s slugger Mark McGwire hit in the top of the 5th inning (see picture above). The blast was estimated to have traveled 538 feet (you can see video of the homer here). From my vantage point in center field I had an amazing view of the ball’s flight. After I shot the swing I could not help but take a look to my right and watch the flight of the ball as it sailed high and deep and WAY over the left field wall. It was by far the most incredible home run I had ever seen hit at the time, and it remains so to this day. You take a 100 miles per hour Randy Johnson fastball and have Mark McGwire connect with it and magical things can happen. They sure did that night!

Once Johnson settled in with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1999 I had plenty of chances to photograph him as he made many appearances on the hill against the Giants in San Francisco (see below).

In 2009 Johnson joined the Giants to finish his career and try to get his 300th career win before he retired. He was 45 and had a little bit of gas left in his tank. I think he was good for the ball club and helped out some of the Giants younger pitchers mature as the team started to turn the corner and become competitive again after several miserable seasons. I was excited to have Johnson in the orange and black so I could shoot him more often. It was a nice opportunity to be able to close the story on a sure-fire Hall of Famer like Johnson, so I did my best to photograph him from the many different angles that the fabulous AT&T Park has.

Johnson became a first-ballot Hall of Famer in my book on February 7, 2004 when he chartered a plane and flew from his home in Arizona to Southern California on his own dime to sign autographs at an event to raise money for the children of legendary photographer V.J. Lovero, who had died a month earlier. Johnson was one of 20 current or former big leaguers to show up that day for V.J.’s sons John and Jay Lovero. The impressive lineup included Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson, Tony La Russa, and many others. The event was co-organized by Hall of Famer Carew and freelance photographer Lou Sauritch. The amount of money Johnson raised on his own that day was astonishing. Johnson knew V.J. well and had done many photo shoots with him. He honored V.J. and his family in a very special way that Saturday afternoon. I was there and it was a day I will never forget. Enjoy your weekend in Cooperstown Randy. The kid from Livermore had a pretty nice career.