New Look Big Unit : For Hitters, It’s Usually Lights Out When Randy Johnson Is the Pitcher

The first time Larry Walker had a chance to experience the unique thrill of hitting against Randy Johnson this season, he didn’t.

The National League batting leader took the day off last month, rested the old .398 average and, generally speaking, opted to increase his chances of living to see his grandchildren.

Sandy Koufax was unhittable. Bob Gibson was mean. Sam McDowell was as wild as he was fast. Ryne Duren wore glasses as thick as Coke bottles and, sometimes, threw his first warmup pitch off the backstop as a message. Dick Radatz weighed 235 pounds and looked like his nickname--”The Monster.” Roger Clemens’s rockets twice struck out 20 men. Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams had the windup of a berserk whirligig. And every time Nolan Ryan took the mound, hitters felt like it was Friday the 13th and they’d just broken a mirror.

But nobody in the last 40 years, and perhaps nobody ever, has terrified major league hitters like The Big Unit. In particular, Johnson scares left-handed batters more than Mike Tyson scares Ross Perot. Perhaps that other Johnson--Walter, The Big Train, with his sidearm blurs--caused more one-day flu epidemics among opposing hitters. But probably not.

Last week, on the eve of the 68th All-Star Game, won by the American League, 3-1, the 6-10 Johnson with his 100 mph left-handed fastball was asked his opinion of a supposedly great hitter such as Walker deliberately ducking the challenge of facing a comparably great pitcher.

“I didn’t realize he wasn’t in the lineup,” said Johnson, making clear his view of his own place in the baseball universe relative to any mere batsman.

Told that Walker had claimed that he and Johnson were “friends,” The Unit responded, “I don’t remember getting a Christmas card from him last year.”

When Walker came to bat in the All-Star Game at Jacobs Field, Johnson had retired all five men he’d faced--two on strikeouts of Craig Biggio and Barry Bonds, and three on limp ground outs. So, Johnson could afford to indulge himself.

His first pitch was a fastball that passed four feet above Walker’s head. The man who hit 19 home runs on 44 swings in Monday’s home run contest, including six blasts that ranged from 436 feet to 479 feet, did the logical thing. Walker turned his batting helmet around backward. And moved from the left-handed batter’s box to the righty’s side.

Everybody in the jam-packed house recognized that this was a reprise of Johnson’s mock attack on Philadelphia’s John Kruk in the ’93 All-Star Game. After an identical pitch far over his head, Kruk had staggered out of the batter’s box, grabbed his heart, then struck out as quickly as humanly possible.

As Walker mocked himself, the crowd laughed. The players in the dugout laughed. Walker laughed. Johnson didn’t laugh. He was thrown off his stride. After taking one pitch--a high fastball--as a righty, Walker went back to his normal port side. But Johnson walked him. Not amused, Johnson quickly retired the side.

“It was kind of humid out there. The ball just slipped,” said Johnson of his comic interlude with Walker, who really is a longtime friend. “A spur of the moment thing,” said Walker of his escape to a new batter’s box. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

Five years ago, Johnson might have laughed, too--admitting that the gag was just a lark. Back then, he was a sensible fellow with a normal haircut. He loved photography and was known to rise before the sun to get sympathetic photos of poor simple folk. Hitters heard about the giant with the Alan Alda world view. They sensed that he feared his own power on the mound. If they crowded the plate, he’d take something off his fastball to avoid hitting them.

Back then, Johnson was also a mediocre pitcher. Then one day, the disgusted Johnson went to his idol--Ryan--to ask how his career record could be 49-48. Johnson talks about that meeting. But only hints about specifics. Hitters, however, got the message. Johnson grew his hair to shoulder length, added a goatee and mustache, and, all in all, tried to achieve a scraggly serial killer appearance. He succeeded. In the city of grunge, he was the town’s new poster boy. He was a headbanger’s headbanger.

Hitters also began to notice that, whenever Johnson went more than a couple of games without drilling a hitter with a healthy fastball, suddenly, in a suitable game situation, The Unit would become wild. Was it possible that the aging Ryan had effected a soul transplant to his successor? No pitcher had a more intimidating reputation than Ryan who, it was widely believed, hit a few batters on purpose and delighted in spreading terror.

Maybe it was all dugout scuttlebutt, occasioned by the New Look. But it stuck. And Johnson loved it. You’ll never get him to admit that his Kruk and Walker pitches were entirely innocent. His act’s now part of his art. Now, he’s one of the most dominant pitchers of the century. His record the past five years is 67-18 with an almost unbelievable 1,059 strikeouts in just 834 innings. Such a ratio is more than the confluence of an historic fastball with an 89-mph slider and fine control. It’s raw fear in the feet of hitters who find their spikes dancing, not digging in, as Johnson delivers. He’s won 44 of his past 50 decisions, the second-best such record over a 50-decision span in history, according to Sports Illustrated.

Batters, naturally, try to talk themselves out of Big Unit Syndrome. “You have to tell yourself, ‘Hang in. Stay.’ You have to keep that front shoulder from flying (open). You can’t have any fear,” said seven-time batting champion Tony Gwynn before this game. Then chuckling, Gwynn confessed: “OK, if a 6-10 guy is dealing, maybe a little fear is good. It makes you concentrate better. But you can’t let the fear take over like Kruky did.”

Easy to say. On the first pitch of his first at-bat against Johnson, Gwynn learned that seeing is believing. Johnson threw a slider that Gwynn must have thought was going to go behind him. He leaped back from the plate. The pitch ended up barely missing the inside corner.

Gwynn broke into a grin, shook his head and compared impressions with home plate umpire Larry Barnett. As soon as Johnson threw a pitch over the plate, Gwynn slapped it into play--right back to Johnson. Despite his seven batting titles and his shot at a .400 average this year, the lefty-hitting Gwynn might as well have held up a sign that said “Lemme outta here!”

Baseball is a game of familiar sizes, dimensions and measurements. Big leaguers have grown accustomed to 95-mph heat since their minor league days. Maybe they can’t always hit such stuff. But it’s familiar to them. Add just a few miles per hour, however, and their eyes open wide.

All-star games exist to showcase not merely stars but The Stars. Even the greats are not created equal. And nobody has ever been created just like Johnson. Many pitchers will end up with better career statistics. But few will be remembered more vividly.

Randy Johnson is at his peak at this very moment. With chronic disk problems that caused him to miss most of the ’96 season, his prime may not be a long one. But no one since 1868 has ever stood taller on a big league mound. In fact, as the Big Unit showed again this night, even that is a slight understatement.