Randy Johnson Throwing Out First Pitch
Dave · January 28, 2010 at 9:00 pm · Filed Under Mariners
If you haven’t heard, the Mariners announced today that Randy Johnson will throw out the first pitch at the home opener on April 12th, which is just really awesome. Johnson and the M’s didn’t part on the best of terms, but I’m really happy to see that the organization was able to put that in the past and give the fans a chance to salute Johnson one more time. Perhaps, if everyone in the stadium cheers loud enough, he’ll change his mind and un-retire. The bullpen could use a good lefty with a knockout slider.
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When I saw that headline at the Times today I thought “Holy shit, he unretired and signed with the M’s!”
This is still pretty cool, though.
I hope Griffey tickles him!
Johnson is just one of those pitchers who I’ll really go out of my way to see, if only because it’s so fun to watch him. Now that he’s retired it’s great to see him embrace his role as one of the greatest Mariners of all time.
Awesome!
HIGH PITCHED GIRLIE SCREAM! HIGH PITCHED GIRLIE SCREAM!
OMG!
OMG!
OMG!
‘breathe’ ‘breathe’
OK, OK, OK, let’s all channel Brett Favre here, “I’m not really retired. I didn’t really retire. I think I still can contribute. I want to come back if someone wants me back.”
It would be cool if they had him come in out of the bullpen to make the pitch. That would work better in the Kingdome, though.
I wonder who is going to catch it? Edgar? Bone? Wilson? Valle? (Not Griffey — he’ll be busy preparing some kind of prank)
He still could. Maybe he’ll get up there, bask in the applause, drill one into the catcher’s mitt, realize this is still kind of fun, and walk off the mound and into Zduriencik’s office in search of a pen. Or maybe he’ll just hang up there, gesturing to the A’s to come out and take their best swings.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Griffey is going to be the one to catch it.
This is another example of how this front office is turning the franchise around.
A long overdue recognition of the best pitcher ever to wear an M’s uniform.
Call me an idiot, but I think it’d be pretty cool if Dan Wilson caught it.
What would make it perfect is to have Larry Walker or John Kruk in the batters box.
what, no Mark Langston night?
Why not have Mark Langston catch it? Or make it like when the president signs a civil rights bill or tax reform bill or something — use one pen for two letters, use another pen for two letters, etc. (So everyone can say they have a pen that signed the bill.) Why not have him throw out a “first pitch” to Dan Wilson, Edgar, Mark Langston, etc. etc. etc…..
Dave’s pulling our leg. He saw the look on Jack’s face when he was asked if he’d called Randy during the offseason, the one and only question he would not answer at Benaroya, even though it was not out of bounds to answer since Randy was a free agent.
Uhhhh…Breadbaker, you need to check out Pravda. He’s not pulling our collective leg.
We want Snappy!
Hey if we’re gonna win it all, the M’s greats might as well get a ring too. Randy to the pen, Edgar as batting cage manager, Wilson as Rob Johnson’s personal translator, Buhner as ‘Moose 2.0’…
I know Randy is throwing out the first pitch, wabbles. I get my Pravda on Facebook and knew about Randy throwing out the first pitch hours before it was posted here. But is there something in Pravda that indicates the front office would give any consideration to him coming back to pitch? That’s what my comment was about.
@ Breadbaker, Well to quote from a classic Peanuts comic strip where Lucy asks Linus why he thinks The Great Pumpkin is FINALLY going to show up THIS year: HOPE!
Man, it would be so sweet if he grew the mullet for this occasion.
Actually, it’s too bad the home opener isn’t against the Red Sox. Because based on an amazing article found by Jeff over at LL, the perfect receiver for something thrown by RJ would be Terry Francona.
Maybe the M’s will seize the merchandising opportunity and sell Mariners’ caps with attached mullet wigs. You know, to go along with the Ken Griffey Jr prosthesis butts.
I wonder if old snappy still has its snap? Maybe one of the pitchers can have a mysterious ailment to make room on the roster and Randy can sign a 1 game contract and pitch that game. If that happened, win or lose the crowd would go wild.
Good news on Griffey
Trainer Rick Griffin gave an optimistic report on Ken Griffey Jr., who underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in October to remove a bone spur.
“He had a lot of discomfort last year,” Griffin said. “He’s better now than at any point last year. We anticipate him coming into camp without his knee bothering him quite as much, and being able to do a little more. He was running around 10 days after surgery.”
Griffin saw Griffey about a month ago and said he had lost 6 or 7 pounds after promising general manager Jack Zduriencik at the end of the year he’d return in spring “ripped.”
Said Griffin: “He knows he has to lose some weight, and I think he will. I’m not saying he will look like he did in ’95, but I think he will look a little better (than last year).”
We heard the exact same things about Griffey last year.
He’s old, and his knees are held together with duct tape. He’s not going to have some sort of magical resurgence.
Same here. I can’t make it to Seattle very often, but I made a point last May 22 to be there to see Randy vs. Jason Vargas. Awesome game. When Griffey was called to pinch hit in the bottom of the 9th in a 1-1 tie, and popped out to the track… oh that was close to a perfect ending. Still, Lopez winning it in the 12th was pretty cool.
That’s Mr. Snappy to you.
good times.
Wow. The combination of nostalgia and a smart front office running the baseball side of things is fixing to turn 2010 into one of my favorite baseball seasons ever.
This might actually force me to endure opening day crowds and the pleasantries of watching baseball in an open air stadium in mid April in the PNW. Not everything about the kingdome was bad, just most things.
This is awesome! A very classy move on the part of both Z and RJ to make this happen for the fans.
Thank you, gentlemen!
I think he’ll dog it and throw a lazy toss into the dirt and then go to Houston and throw a laser strike right over the plate for the first pitch in an Astros game.
Seriously though, this is amazing. It just wasn’t that long ago that this organization was a disaster on the field, off the field from top to bottom and now they seem to be doing almost everything right.
Excellent choice. I can’t wait to see how riled up he’s gonna get the 10th Man.
How about Felix catching the first pitch? Would be like passing the batton from the past to the present and future.
I don’t see that happening. Felix was never his teammate and Randy has been gone for 10 years now.
Dan Wilson is a possibility, but when you’ve already got Griffey on the roster, you can save him for another night.
Isn’t the DH the 10th man? Were you referring to Griffey?
(Alternatively I guess each day’s starting pitcher could be considered the 10th man. Perhaps this is why the term doesn’t really exist except as a sort of weird football transplant, like pronouncing “defense” with a long first vowel or the Florida Marlins’ cheerleaders.)
Now that would be the coolest opening day ever! Have him throw the first pitch, and then announce to the crowd “Now pitching for the Seattle Mariners … Randy Johnson!”.
And Johnson tears away his street clothes to reveal a special M’s uniform, with a huge compass-rosed S on the front, as the Superman Theme swells over the stadium loudspeakers….
Yeah, ain’t going to happen. But you know there won’t be a spectator watching the game that doesn’t at least entertain the thought.
Just realized that the starter for the home opener should be the #3, which very well may be RRS — unless Bavasi bumps him down to fourth in the order to put a righty between him and Lee. But it would be a nice perk/reward for Ryan to get the home opener if he cements the #3 spot in Spring Training, and it would be awesome for The Big Unit to hand off to the Hyphen. Maybe Randy can give some pointers to Ryan, one big lefty to another.
Randy Johnson shouldn’t ‘pitch’ to whoever the catcher is…he needs to unleash “Mr. Snappy”.