Walter Johnson: Biography, Stats, and Facts

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Biography of Walter Johnson

Walter Perry Johnson was a right-handed Major League Baseball pitcher. He played with the Washington Senators from 1907 to 1927. He was born in 1887 and died in 1946. Considered by many to be the best pitcher ever to play the game of baseball, Johnson established multiple long-standing pitching records. A few of his records remain unbroken to this day, nearly a century after his career ended.

Walter Johnson was born on a farm near rural Humboldt, Kansas. Although sportswriters sometimes mistakenly claimed he was of Swedish ancestry, his ancestors actually came from Great Britain. After moving to California during his youth, Johnson attended Fullerton High School in Orange County, California. He was spotted by a talent scout in 1907 and signed a contract with the Washington Senators in July of that year, at the age of nineteen. His Major League debut soon followed, on August 2, 1907.

Walter Johnson Stats

Johnson won 417 games over the course of his career. He still holds the all-time career record for shutouts, with 110. During his 21-year career, Johnson had twelve 20-win seasons, featuring ten in a row from 1909 to 1919. He topped 30 wins twice during that stretch, with 33 in 1912 and 36 in 1913. Johnson won the triple crown for pitchers in 1913, 1918 and 1924. This means he led the league in three statistical categories for the season: wins, strikeouts, and earned run average (ERA).

He pitched with a sidearm motion, and his overpowering fastball was the stuff of legend. In 1917, his fastball was clocked at 134 feet per second, equivalent to 91.36 miles per hour, a unique velocity for that era. Johnson’s career total of 3,508 strikeouts stood as a record for more than 55 years until Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, and Gaylord Perry all surpassed it in 1983.

After retiring as a player, Johnson enjoyed a brief career as a manager. He started managing the Newark team of the International League in 1928 and eventually moved up to the majors. He managed his old team in Washington from 1929 to 1932, and the Cleveland Indians, from 1933 to 1935.

Five Facts about Walter Johnson

1) Walter Johnson twice won the American League Most Valuable Player Award, in 1913 and 1924. This feat has only been accomplished by two other pitchers, Carl Hubbell in 1933 and 1936 and Hal Newhouser in 1944 and 1945.

2) In 1936, Walter Johnson was one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Also inducted in the 1936 Hall of Fame class were some of the legends of the game: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner and Christy Mathewson. Johnson was listed on 189 of 228 ballots by the Baseball Writers Association of America. His Hall of Fame plaque reads that he pitched ‘for many years with a losing team.’

3) Although he often pitched for losing teams during his career, Johnson finally led Washington to the World Series in 1924, after 18 years in the show. Johnson lost both games he started, but he became the hero by pitching four scoreless innings of relief in the seventh and deciding game.

4) Johnson won an astounding 40% of his team’s total wins for the 1913 season, with 36 wins. In April and May of that year, he pitched 55.2 consecutive scoreless innings, a standing American League record and the third-longest streak of its kind.

5) Walter Johnson was nicknamed “The Big Train” by sports writer Grantland Rice, who was reminded of an express train by Johnson’s size and fastball. Johnson also had other nicknames. His teammates called him “Barney,” after race car driver Barney Oldfield. This was due to the reckless and erratic manner in which Johnson drove his car. He was also nicknamed “Sir Walter”, “The White Knight”, and “The Gentle Johnson” because of his gentlemanly gamesmanship.

Resource by F.Rosseti

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