Randy Johnson hit a bird with a ball 19 years ago.
March 24 isn't very remarkable.The movie "The Great Escape" was inspired by the real life WWII escape.Elvis was drafted into the army.There was an oil spill in 1989.All three of the Mannings were born.It's not worth marking March 24 on your calendar.
The man is Randy Johnson.Randy Johnson was about to win his third Cy Young-winning season in a row.The age that nowadays gets a pitcher a sideways look when he asks for a contract extension is 30.Johnson didn't win his first award until he was 31, but he did get a first Cy Young vote at 29.
By 37, the Big Unit had become the most dominant starting pitcher in baseball.Johnson joined the Arizona Diamondbacks in 1999, the year after they were founded, after spending nearly a decade with the SeattleMariners and Houston Astros.
Maybe it was the change in scenery, or the dry desert air of Phoenix, but once Johnson arrived in Arizona, he went on a four-year tear.He picked up the ball for the D-backs in 1999, and by the time he put it down at the end of the 2002 season, he had won four straight Cy Young awards, four consecutive All-Star appearances, and the triple crown.He was the strikeout leader for three of the four years.
It was a big year for Johnson in 2001, he was in the middle of it.He ended the season with league-leading stat, his fourth of five career Cy Youngs, and he would also get his only World Series ring.
It all began with a bird.Johnson's legacy could reach mythic proportions if a bird had sacrificed its life.
The season was yet to start.The last spring training game the D-backs played was meaningless.One bird had no idea that it was about to flap its wings for the last time as the sun was bright and the grass was green.
Calvin Murray was facing Johnson.He reared back, released the pitch, and waited for the sound of the bat hitting the glove.That is not what he heard.
The dove that flew between the mound and home plate was connected to the missile by Johnson.It was dead on contact.The crowd knew what had happened.They groaned together.
"It exploded, feathers and everything, just 'poof!'"Murray told them.There were feathers on the home plate.I never saw the ball.
The official record that Johnson threw a pitch that killed a bird was wiped out by the umpire.Jeff Kent carried the dead dove away.
Randy Johnson struck out eight batters in a meaningless spring training game.The bird didn't count because it was a different kind of strikeout.
The impact is still happening almost two decades later.There have been other baseball vs. bird events, but nothing like the one that kicked up a cloud of dust and feathers.There are stories of pitchers getting distracted and chasing fire engines, of batters chugging beer at home plate, and of managers attacking furry mascots.We didn't have a real story about a professional pitcher killing a bird until March 24, 2001.Even though baseball has been around for 150 years, there can still be new things.
To become a legend, Johnson didn't need to kill a bird.In the midst of one of baseball's most dominant stretches, his road to the Hall of Fame was already paved.He was a mythical person because of the killing of a bird.There is almost no pitcher more suited to obliterating a bird in mid-flight than Johnson.Johnson had an edge in pitching, but also in bird killing.It might be more amazing that Johnson didn't become the No.The bird community has an enemy.
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