Randy Johnson

Randy Johnson stood 6 feet 10 inches and threw a fastball that approached 100 miles an hour from a low, slinging left arm, and for a decade he was the most frightening pitcher in baseball. They called him the Big Unit. He won 303 games and five Cy Young Awards, struck out 4,875 hitters, more than anyone but Nolan Ryan, and threw a perfect game at 40, the oldest man ever to do it. The BBWAA elected him to the Hall of Fame in 2015, on the first ballot with 97.3 percent of the vote.

The Big Unit

Johnson was born on September 10, 1963, in Walnut Creek, California, and grew up to be the tallest player in the history of the major leagues, a gangly left-hander who got his nickname in a batting cage in Montreal. The Expos outfielder Tim Raines ran into him during practice in 1988 and looked up. "You're a big unit," Raines said, and it stuck. The size was the first thing hitters saw, the long arm releasing the ball from a low three-quarters slot that made a left-hander feel as if the pitch were coming from first base, and the second thing they saw was a slider that broke as if it fell off a cliff.

The Wild Years

For a long time Johnson could not throw it where he wanted. He led the league in walks three straight years, punched a wall in frustration and broke his hand, and looked like a fireballer who would never control it. The turn came late in 1992, when he met Nolan Ryan and a pitching coach who spotted the flaw, that he was landing on his heel instead of the ball of his front foot, a small fix that let him repeat his delivery. His father died that Christmas, and Johnson came back with a focus that never left him. "From that day on," he said, "I got a lot more strength and determination to be the best player I could be." He led the league in strikeouts the next four years.

Refuse to Lose in Seattle

Johnson spent ten years with the Seattle Mariners, and in 1995 he carried the team that saved baseball in the city. He went 18-2 and won the Cy Young Award, and in the playoffs he beat the Yankees as a starter and then came out of the bullpen on no rest in the decisive game, pitching into the eleventh inning until Edgar Martínez's double ended it. The Mariners had been bound for another city, and the run kept them in Seattle and built them a new ballpark. By then everyone in the game knew that facing Johnson was a kind of dread, and the hitters did not hide it.

The Most Feared Pitcher Alive

Left-handed hitters in particular wanted no part of him. At the 1993 All-Star Game his first pitch to John Kruk sailed over the hitter's head to the backstop, and Kruk clutched his chest, stepped out, and gave the at-bat away for laughs that were only half a joke. Four years later, at another All-Star Game, the left-handed Larry Walker batted right-handed against him and turned his helmet around for protection. "What's the worst thing Randy Johnson can do to you?" the infielder Jeff Huson said. "He can kill you." In the spring of 2001 a fastball struck and killed a dove that flew across its path, a freak moment that somehow fit the man.

The 2001 Championship

Johnson left Seattle for the Arizona Diamondbacks and reached his peak, winning four straight Cy Young Awards from 1999 through 2002 and, with Curt Schilling, pitching a four-year-old expansion team to a championship in 2001. The two were named co-MVPs of the World Series against the Yankees, and Johnson won three games in it, the last in relief in Game 7, the night after he had started and won Game 6. He struck out 372 hitters in 2001, won the pitching Triple Crown the next year, and at his best was as untouchable as any pitcher has ever been.

Perfect at Forty

On May 18, 2004, at 40, Johnson threw a perfect game against the Braves, the oldest pitcher ever to throw one, retiring all 27 hitters with 13 strikeouts. He pitched on for the Yankees and then back home to Arizona and finally to San Francisco, where he won his 300th game in 2009 at 45. He walked away with 4,875 strikeouts, second only to Nolan Ryan and the most by any left-hander, a record that may stand forever.

Cooperstown

The BBWAA elected Johnson to the Hall of Fame in 2015, on the first ballot with 97.3 percent of the vote, the first player to go in wearing a Diamondbacks cap. He had aimed the scowl and the mullet and the slider at hitters for 22 years, and he stood at the podium and laughed at all of it. "I no longer have a fastball," he said. "I no longer have a bad mullet. And my scowl is long gone." He turned to photography after baseball, shooting wildlife and rock concerts, a quiet second life for the most intimidating pitcher of his time.