The Big Train Makes His Debut

100 years ago today, the pitcher from Idaho, Walter Johnson, strode to the mound to face the Detroit Tigers, who were playing the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium. Johnson, a Hall of Famer, is regarded as one of the greatest pitchers to ever play the game. His legacy is somewhat murky as he played his entire career for the Washington Senators (first in our hearts, last in the American League), a team that fled the nation's capital, not once, but twice. There used to be a statue of Johnson outside of Griffith Stadium, but the stadium is no more and the statue is long gone.

Your mandatory archival content comes here: The only reason we know as much as we do about The Big Train, the nickname by which Johnson was known, were 30 scrapbooks that were kept in a cupboard of a built-in bookcase of the home of Carolyn Thomas, Walter Johnson's daughter. The scrapbooks were created by Johnson's wife, Hazel, and document the 417 wins, the 531 complete games, and the 110 shutouts. (And I agree with ADR, easily records that will not go by the wayside).

It is interesting to note that on that very first game against Detroit, August 2, 1907, Johnson faced off against Ty Cobb and the rest of the powerful Tigers lineup (Powerful Tigers lineup - isn't that an oxymoron?) . While the Senators and Johnson lost the game (Johnson had 279 career losses), Cobb later remarked about Johnson,

"I watched him take that easy windup - and then something went past me that made me flinch. I hardly saw the pitch, but I heard it. The thing just hissed with danger. Every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ballpark."

Twenty-nine years later, Cobb and Johnson were two of the five inaugural members of the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Hey, anybody wanna try for the other three (no googling! - one of them is easy, the other two are tougher).