Walter Johnson: The Big Train and the 110 Shutouts No One Has Matched
417 wins, 110 shutouts and a 2.17 career ERA. Walter Johnson spent 21 seasons with the Washington Senators, waited until 36 for a World Series title, and was one of the first five players elected to the Hall of Fame.
Ask a room full of baseball historians to name the greatest pitcher who ever lived, and Walter Johnson will be one of the first names you hear. He spent 21 seasons with the Washington Senators, set records that still stand a century later, and earned a nickname that captured exactly what it felt like to stand in the box against him: the Big Train.
A farm boy from Kansas
Johnson was born in 1887 on a farm in Kansas, and his family later moved to California. He never had much formal coaching. What he had was a long right arm and a loose, almost sidearm delivery that seemed to cost him no effort at all. The Senators signed him in 1907, when he was 19, and he never pitched for another major league team.
Hitters of the era described his fastball as something you heard before you saw. There were no radar guns, but players and writers agreed he threw harder than anyone in the game. The nickname came from that pitch, which was said to roar past a batter like a passing train.
Numbers that barely seem real
Johnson's career line looks like a misprint by modern standards:
417 wins, second only to Cy Young in major league history.
110 shutouts, still the all-time record.
A 2.17 career ERA across more than 5,900 innings.
3,509 strikeouts, a career mark that stood for more than half a century until it was finally passed in 1983.
His 1913 season is one of the best any pitcher has ever had. He went 36-7 with a 1.14 ERA and was named the league's most valuable player. Five years earlier, in 1908, he threw three shutouts against the same opponent in the space of four days, the kind of workload that no team would even consider today.
What makes those numbers even more remarkable is the team around him. The Senators were a losing club for most of his career, so many of his wins came with very little run support. There is an old line about Washington from those years: first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League. Johnson was the reason they were not last more often.
The championship that took 18 years
For most of his career Johnson never got to pitch in October. That changed in 1924, when the Senators finally won the pennant and Johnson, now 36, reached the World Series for the first time.
He lost both of his starts in that series, and many fans assumed his chance had passed. Then came Game 7. Johnson entered the game in relief in the ninth inning and threw four scoreless innings while the game went into extra innings. In the bottom of the twelfth, Washington pushed across the winning run, and the franchise had its only World Series title. Johnson was credited with the win. After 18 seasons he was a champion at last, and he was named the league's most valuable player again that year.
More than a statistic
Johnson is remembered for more than what he did on the mound. He was known throughout the game for his gentle temperament and sportsmanship. He rarely argued with umpires, and he was famously careful about pitching inside, because he understood how dangerous his fastball could be to a hitter. Teammates and opponents alike described him as one of the most respected men in baseball.
In 1936, when the Hall of Fame held its first election, five players were chosen: Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson. After his playing days he managed the Senators and later the Cleveland Indians. He died in 1946 at the age of 59.
For Baseball Dream players
Johnson pitched his entire career for one team and showed what two decades of consistency can build. In Baseball Dream you can sign a young pitcher, put in the training day after day, and watch him grow season by season. The next ace who makes the whole league nervous might already be sitting in your bullpen.