The Big Unit in Minnesota

Randy Johnson's 1990 Topps card. He
may be the ugliest great player in
baseball history.

I keep a mental checklist of the great pitchers I've seen in person.

Roger Clemens, at least three times. Greg Maddux twice. Tom Glavine and John Smoltz -- the latter one of four players elected Tuesday to the Hall of Fame --  in the 1991 World Series. I saw Jim Palmer and Steve Carlton with a foot out the door. I rearranged my schedule to see Pedro Martinez (another winner Tuesday) almost a decade ago. Curt Schilling. Bert Blyleven, of course. Jim Kaat started the first major league game I attended.

I never saw Randy Johnson. The Big Unit spent a big chunk of his career in the National League, and for a variety of reasons our schedules never meshed. The year Arizona came to Minnesota for interleague play, for example, Johnson was on the DL.

And, supposedly, when he was with the Mariners. Lou Pinella sought to avoid pitching Johnson at the Metrodome. The story was that Johnson's father was buried in Duluth and the pitcher, when the team came to Minnesota, would make the trip north to visit the grave, and Pinella thought that made Johnson emotionally unprepared to pitch.

True or false?

For his career, Johnson made 11 starts in the Metrodome, which sounds like a low figure but isn't hugely out of line with other AL parks (excluding Seattle and New York, the two AL teams he pitched for). He had, for example, 13 starts in Kansas City, 11 in Detroit and nine in the White Sox's two stadiums.

But presumably, if the grieving-son theory is correct, it took a few starts for Pinella to deduce a pattern. Johnson's Metrodome starts by year for Seattle:

1989: 2
1990: 2
1991: 1
1992: 0
1993: 2
1994 :1
1995 :2
1996 :0
1997: 0
1998: 0

It sure does look as if Pinella was avoiding using Johnson at Minnesota at the end.

For what it's worth. Johnson had a career ERA in the Metrodome of 4.11, more than a run above his career ERA. But it's worth remembering that he didn't become good, much less great, until 1993, and he had a big chunk of his Minnesota starts behind him at that point.

10 things to remember about Randy Johnson's career

1) He played college ball at USC with Mark McGwire — and played basketball there too.

2) When he arrived in the majors with Montreal, he was the tallest man ever in MLB. (Jon Rauch, now with the Twins, is the current record-holder.)

3) His first three seasons in a major league rotation — with Seattle — were a struggle for command. He led the AL in walks each year. Nolan Ryan, then with Texas, suggested that he change his stride so that he landed on the balls of his right foot rather than the heel. That made a smoother delivery with less jostling — and his pitching immediately got dramatically better.

4) He threw tremendous numbers of pitches for his time, frequently exceeding 130 pitches and about once a year going over 140. This workload came with a physical price. He had four back surgeries and three knee operations. He pitched the last six years or so of his career with an artificial lubricant in his right knee — it was injected at the start of the season and again around the mid-point — because his cartilage was gone.

5) He terrorized left-handed hitters — think John Kruk in the 1993 All-Star game; Johnson threw his first pitch over Kurk's head, and Kruk spent the rest of the at-bat as far from home plate as he could get — and most lefties got a day off when Johnson's turn in the rotation came up. As a general rule, only the very best left-handed hitters faced him, and even they weren't too happy about it.

6) He threw a perfect game on May 18, 2004, against the Atlanta Braves. I remember watching the highlights and realizing that he had, for the last two innings, returned to a delivery that put more stress on the knee — risking further damage for the chance at the perfecto.

7) Speaking of risking damage for glory: Johnson, then with the Arizona Diamondbacks, pitched seven innings (107 pitches) to win Game 6 of the 2001 World Series against the New York Yankees. The next day, in Game 7, he came out of the bullpen to get the last four outs as the D'backs put an end to Joe Torre's streak of World Series titles.

His stats for that World Series: 3-0. 1.04 ERA, 11 baserunners allowed in 17.1 innings, 19 strikeouts.

8) He won five Cy Young Awards, four of them in a row. He also finished second three times.

9) His strikeout total (4,875) is second all-time only to Ryan. His strikeouts per nine innings rate — 10.6 — is unsurpassed.

10) Of course, the bird. In a 2001 spring training game, a hapless bird darted into the path of a Johnson pitch and disappeared in a puff of feathers. (The ruling, incidentally, was no pitch.)

The Big Unit calls it quits

I keep in my skull a list of the great pitchers I've seen work in person.

I saw Roger Clemens beat the Twins in 1986 a few weeks after his first 20-strikeout game announced his arrival as a star.

I saw Greg Maddux during his Cy Young season with the Cubs — that game was in St. Louis — and again when he pitched against the Twins in the Metrodome.

I saw the Twins beat Pedro Martinez and Curt Schilling. I saw John Smoltz and Tom Glavine in the World Series.

I remember seeing games pitched by Jim Palmer and Steve Carlton on their way out, Bert Blyleven and Frank Viola, Jim Kaat and Tommy John and, of course, Johan Santana.

But I don't remember ever being at a game with Randy Johnson pitching, and now I never will.

The Big Unit hung 'em up Tuesday, calling an end to one of the great pitching careers of this or any era. A 303-166 won-loss record, 4,875 strikeouts, five Cy Young Awards, four of them in a row — the numbers are staggering.

Part of why I never saw Johnson pitch is, I think, is a piece of personal history. Johnson's father is buried in Duluth, and when his team came to Minnesota, Johnson would go to visit the grave. At some point, Lou Piniella — who managed Johnson for most of his time in the American League — decided that he would avoid pitching Johnson in the Metrodome, because the pitcher was too wound up emotionally.

According to Baseball Reference, Johnson made 11 starts in the Metrodome — only one after 1995.

His Metrodome ERA was 4.11 — almost a full run higher than his ERA in the Kingdome, his home park in those days — and his strikeout rate in Minnesota is the lowest of any park in which he threw at least 20 innings.

It seems likely, as I sort through his game logs against the Twins, that I may have been at one or two of his starts early in his Seattle tenure, when he was walking 150 men a year and greatness was not evident. I had partial season tickets in those days — Saturdays and Mondays and occasional other days — and I find a couple of Monday games in the Dome on his record.

But I simply don't remember him. He wasn't the Big Unit yet. He was just a really tall guy trying to get his body to work efficiently, trying to harness his stuff.

Which, I guess, is a story that offers some hope for Francisco Liriano.

All done for Glavine?

Tom Glavine signed with the Atlanta Braves this offseason -- the one team he was willing to play for -- got hurt, made his way through rehab, and just when he declared himself ready to pitch, the Braves released him.

It seems harsh, but the reality is that the Braves aren't the Braves of Glavine's heyday, and there really isn't much point in giving a 43-year-old, even a Cooperstown-bound 43-year-old, 22 starts the rest of the season. It's time for them to give Tommy Hanson, a prime prospect, the ball and the chance to develop.

Glavine can probably still help a contender, but whether he wants to is another matter. He's got 305 lifetime wins, a World Series ring and more than enough money.

* Speaking of old lefties once-great and now something less, Randy Johnson got rained out Wednesday. He's slated to try for win No. 300 Thursday.

* Last season Cliff Lee got snippy with Carlos Gomez when Go-Go bunted. same thing happned Wednesday. It seems so obvious that bunting on Lee bugs him that it really ought to be the Twins strategy some day -- bunt, bunt, bunt until he can't think straight.