Seattle will honor Randy Johnson with a pregame ceremony at T-Mobile Park on Saturday, then officially retire his No. 51 before the Mariners face the Kansas City Royals. Johnson will become the fifth player to have his number retired by the club.
The Mariners are also giving away Randy Johnson ’80s jerseys to the first 20,000 fans at Friday night’s game, a two-day salute that arrives as Seattle sits 16-16 after a strong road trip. The team’s retired-number group already includes Ken Griffey Jr.’s No. 24, Edgar Martinez’s No. 11 and Ichiro Suzuki’s No. 51, which was honored last year. Jackie Robinson’s No. 42 is retired across Major League Baseball.
Johnson’s place in Mariners history was secured long before Saturday’s ceremony. Seattle acquired him from the Montreal Expos in 1989 in the trade that sent Mark Langston to Montreal, with Brian Holman and Gene Harris also coming over in the deal. He first came as a Mariner in 1995, when he delivered a complete game in the one-game playoff against the Angels to send Seattle to the postseason for the first time.
Over 10 seasons in Seattle, Johnson went 130-74 with a 3.42 ERA, then finished his career with 4,875 strikeouts and five Cy Young Awards. Rick Rizzs, who called games alongside the late Dave Niehaus during Johnson’s entire run in Seattle, said the pitcher left no doubt what kind of force he was. Rizzs described him as one of the most intimidating, dominating, fiercest competitors he had ever seen on the mound, and one of the greatest pitchers in Major League Baseball.
Rizzs also recalled how uneven Johnson could be before he found his form. He said Johnson could not throw a strike early on, then became a Hall of Fame pitcher once he learned to throw his fastball for a strike and added the slider the booth nicknamed Mr. Snappy. From there, Rizzs said, Johnson took the ball wanting nine innings and strikeouts, with his mullet, snarl and stare making hitters uneasy long before the first pitch. That is the player Seattle is putting beside Griffey, Martinez and Ichiro this weekend: a pitcher whose power and swagger turned a promising arm into a franchise landmark.