Tall Order

It is late March, and Randy Johnson is riding a stationary bike in the Arizona Diamondback clubhouse.

He is pedaling furiously and going nowhere, which is fine.

Johnson is already where he wanted to be, where he had been headed all along, many believe.

His four-year, $52.4-million signing with the Diamondbacks in November, they say, merely confirmed the belief that he was determined to join the team that plays in Bank One Ballpark in Phoenix, only 20 minutes from his new home in Paradise Valley.

The negotiations with the Angels, Dodgers and Texas Rangers, and to a lesser degree the Houston Astros, they claim, were merely a wedge to inflate the price.

Said Gerry Hunsicker, general manager of the Astros, with whom Johnson pitched spectacularly over the second half of last season:

“Once I flew to Arizona and saw the house he had built, I knew he wouldn’t be returning to Houston. We couldn’t compete with the Diamondbacks--financially or logistically.”

Said Dodger General Manager Kevin Malone, “We felt all along that we were a longshot. We knew the importance he placed on family and that he had just built a new home. All things being equal, we knew it would be tough for him to leave [Arizona], but we wanted to be involved if he wasn’t going to stay. I respect his decision, but I think we got the right guy for our club because of the impact Kevin Brown has on the entire team. I think it worked out for the best.”

Brown--who faces Johnson today in a nationally spotlighted season opener at Dodger Stadium, a duel of the two most coveted and expensive pitchers on last winter’s free-agent market--ultimately cost the Dodgers almost twice as much, signing for seven years at an industry-rattling $105 million, plus those 12 cross-country flights on a private jet for his family.

Johnson lives so close to Bank One Ballpark he didn’t even need a gas allowance. His contract does include two season tickets to the Phoenix Suns and use of a luxury suite for Diamondback games, but convenience, he says, had less to do with his decision than competitiveness.

He felt the Diamondbacks--with their $118.9-million free-agent splurge--did more to improve than either the Dodgers or Angels, and that it was easier getting answers from Arizona management than Walt Disney Co.’s corporate chain of command with the Angels, runner-up in his negotiations.

“I don’t care what people say or write, but it’s insulting when they suggest that the only reason I signed with the Diamondbacks is because it’s close to my house and that I lowered my standards [to sign with a second-year team],” the man known as “the Big Unit” said. “The Angels, Dodgers and Rangers were each offering me at least $51 million. You would think people writing those articles would realize that I could have built another home in any of those cities for that. I could have built two or three.”

Johnson said it ultimately came down to the Angels and Diamondbacks, that he had already been looking at homes in the Anaheim Hills area of Orange County.

“I was at a point where I wanted to get the situation over and it was easier getting yes and no answers from Mr. [Jerry] Colangelo [Arizona’s managing general partner],” he said.

“I was being offered $51 million by the Angels and they weren’t done, but they had that chain of command with corporate ownership and I kind of said to myself that if it’s this tough getting answers now, what happens in July, when we need a player for the pennant race and can’t get an answer? I just had the feeling they weren’t coming at me as hard as they might have.

“There was also a lot written about how Mo Vaughn was trying to get me to come to Anaheim. I never had one conversation with him.”

The Seattle Mariners had traded Johnson to Houston on July 31, and the revitalized Johnson went 10-1, helping pitch the Astros to a division title in the National League Central. Houston, however, offered only three years, and Johnson, 36 in September, said he wasn’t interested in going through negotiations again at 39.

“I’m not saying this is my last contract, but if I want to keep pitching when I’m 40 [and his contract with the Diamondbacks expires], then I’ll go ahead at that time,” he said.

Johnson also heard from New York Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, who called on the pitcher’s cell phone, but there were rumors that the Yankees were about to be sold.

“While I had some interest, I understood that I wasn’t a priority for them,” he said. “I mean, I wanted to go to a West Coast team, but I had also talked to several of the Yankee players to check out living conditions in the city and it’s possible I might have ended up wearing pinstripes instead of purple if our conversations had gone anywhere.”

In early June, Johnson almost ended up in Dodger blue, but a tumultuous week of on-again, off-again negotiations between the Dodgers and Mariners failed to produce a trade.

He said he emerged from his job search of last winter with respect for the Dodger organization and tradition but his research disclosed that the first-year Diamondbacks had scored only four fewer runs than the Dodgers.

“So I felt their production was pretty similar but that the Diamondbacks were doing more and getting a lot better,” Johnson said. “The Dodgers hadn’t done much to that time except sign Devon White.

“The point is that it wasn’t like it was this team or no team,” Johnson said of Arizona. “I made a decision that I felt was best for my career and my family. Only time will tell if that decision to come here will be validated, but I think we have just as good a chance of going to the World Series as the Dodgers, Angels and Rangers do. I think we’ll be just as competitive as any of those teams. I think our pitching staff is as good as anybody’s in the National League.”

Johnson, who deferred a significant percentage of his $52.4 million to help the Diamondbacks control their 1999 payroll and sign other players, clicked off the changes: the addition of Todd Stottlemyre, Armando Reynoso and himself to a potentially six-deep rotation that also has Andy Benes, Omar Daal and Brian Anderson; the signings of outfielders Steve Finley and Luis Gonzalez, and the trade for Tony Womack, a leadoff man and last year’s league leader in stolen bases. He points out that the Diamondbacks have Gold Glove winners in center field, Finley, and at third base, Matt Williams, and a potential winner at first base in Travis Lee.

They also have the intimidating 6-foot-10 Big Unit setting a tone.

“I always catch myself for even doubting it, but the more I’m around professional athletes, the more I realize that things don’t just happen, they happen for a reason,” Arizona Manager Buck Showalter said.

“Randy has a lot of pride, a lot of ambition about what he wants to do in this game and what he wants his team to do. He didn’t come here because it was convenient. He wants to win, and that’s contagious. He’s very intense, very focused. He’s getting ready to have a big season.”

Johnson seemed to experience two seasons in 1998, but he said, “I feel like I’m on top of my career. A lot of people say, ‘Oh, at 35, your stats and performance start to go downhill.’ Well, my numbers don’t indicate that, and my competitiveness won’t allow it.

“I have nothing to worry about now, I can just go out and have fun. I tried having fun last year but it was difficult. I’m out of that [Seattle] environment now and know I’m wanted and needed here. I’m happy, my family is happy.

“A lot of guys on this team have the same desire I do. When you put enough of those guys together, you can overcome a lot of things. I’m sure there are many people who don’t believe we can compete with the Dodgers and the other teams in the division, so we just have to go out and prove it.”

Last year, Johnson led the major leagues for the fifth time with 329 strikeouts, the most since Nolan Ryan struck out 341 in 1977. He considers himself a better pitcher than he was four or five years ago, with more weapons, more polish, but it’s still the high-octane fastball and vicious slider that set him apart.

After the Mariners announced before last season that they wouldn’t and couldn’t extend a contract that called for Johnson to make $6 million in 1998, Johnson went 9-10 with a 4.33 earned-run average in 23 starts before joining the Astros, with whom his 10-1 record was complemented by a 1.28 ERA in 11 starts.

The perception was that Johnson, feeling jilted by the Mariners, had lost his focus and wasn’t trying as hard before the trade.

His Seattle situation became an ongoing distraction.

“I think we should have traded him before the season and got rid of the problem,” Mariner Manager Lou Piniella said recently.

“It was a big distraction, an everyday distraction, and we didn’t handle it well.”

The Mariners ultimately got three young players from Houston, all of whom figure in their 1999 plans: Carlos Guillen will start at second base; Freddy Garcia will be the No. 3 pitcher in their rotation, and John Halama is the only left-hander in the bullpen.

“I went from a third-place team to a first-place team,” Johnson said of the move from Seattle to Houston. “I don’t feel I pitched any differently. My intensity wasn’t any different. My velocity wasn’t any different. I was happier, I admit that. I think the numbers indicate that, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t trying in Seattle. I went to a team with an outstanding closer in Billy Wagner and outstanding setup guys. There weren’t many games I came out of that I didn’t win. That wasn’t the case in Seattle, and that tended to get overlooked.”

Johnson still has a difficult time fathoming what happened in Seattle. Whether the Mariners feared his back, his age or his salary demands, with Ken Griffey Jr. and Alex Rodriguez also coming up for new deals soon, Johnson said he was basically dealt “a slap in the face and treated like dirt.” The Mariners never came off their stance and tried to negotiate.

“When you hold every pitching record in Seattle, when you’ve pitched every big game there and been a big part of the Mariners winning the West and getting a new ballpark, I think it’s natural to feel you should have been treated differently,” he said.

“I’d have taken less money and a shorter contract to stay. My wife’s family lives there and my kids loved it there. I would have loved to spend my whole career there and I’m disappointed it didn’t work out, but it was never about money. I was winning games for the Mariners when I was making the minimum. It was about being treated a certain way. But it’s their business and I wish them well.”

Cognizant of the memories it would evoke, Johnson is hopeful of getting an interleague start in Seattle--perhaps in the new Safeco Field, scheduled to open immediately after the All-Star break.

The first stop is today’s big money rematch of the Game 1 duel in the ’98 division series in which Brown and Trevor Hoffman combined on a four-hitter, pitching the San Diego Padres to a 2-1 victory over Johnson and the Astros.

“We faced one another in the playoffs and nobody was talking about the money we were making then, so why should they talk about it now?” Johnson said.

“Neither one of us is going to miss a meal, but nobody says anything about Tom Hanks making $20 million for one movie a year. What [people should be] talking about is the matchup of two quality pitchers, two of the better pitchers in the game. I know I’ll have to be on top of my game, but I don’t get caught up in who I’m facing. I have a lot of respect for anybody standing on a major league mound or in a batter’s box.”

Much has been made of Brown’s intensity and its infectiousness but Johnson is no less intense--and considers that one of his weapons.

“Pitchers have a tendency to put their fielders to sleep,” he said. “I’m kind of the quarterback out there. If I’m intense and animated, the other guys feed off that and are equally intense and animated. I know there are a lot of expectations for me, but that doesn’t bother me. I put a lot of expectations on myself. I accept my responsibility as a staff leader.”

With all of that, there was a turning point for the five-time all-star and Cy Young Award winner, a legacy from his late father, Bud, who died of a heart attack on Christmas Day, 1992, while Johnson was flying from Washington to California to spend the holidays with his parents.

Johnson had a 49-48 record at the time and had led the league in walks for three consecutive years. He was devastated by his father’s death and told his mother he wanted to quit. Carol Johnson talked him out of it, and his life and career turned for the better.

He subsequently married and became the father of two daughters and a son, made subtle mechanical changes after talking to Nolan Ryan and the then-Texas Ranger pitching coach, Tom House, and recognized, having dealt with his father’s death, that “there was no situation I couldn’t get out of, that I had the heart and ability to dig as deep as I needed. I feel like I’ve made myself into everything I wanted to be, with the help of my dad.”

With every victory, Johnson raises his arms and face toward the sky, saluting the father whose death convinced the son that he could drive himself, as he will on that 20-minute ride to his new home ballpark.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Arms Race

AVERAGE SEASON FOR RANDY JOHNSON IN THE ‘ 90S:

IP: 199 1/3

H: 150

BB: 93

Strikeouts: 242

W-L: 15-7

ERA: 3.25

HEAD TO HEAD

Johnson and Kevin Brown the Last Three Seasons: *--*

JOHNSON BROWN 518 2/3 Overall Innings 727 1/3 6.91 Hits per 9 IP 7.75 3.26 BB per 9 1.83 12.23 Strikeouts per 9 7.68 44-15 Overall record 51-26 2.86 Overall ERA 2.33 15 Overall Complete Games 18 8 Overall Shutouts 8

*--*

IN QUOTES

On Selecting Arizona Over the Angels

“I was at a point where I wanted to get the situation over and it was easier getting yes and no answers from Mr. [Jerry] Colangelo [Arizona’s managing general partner]. I was being offered $51 million by the Angels and they weren’t done, but they had that chain of command with corporate ownership and I kind of said to myself that if it’s this tough getting answers now, what happens in July, when we need a player for the pennant race and can’t get an answer?”