It was the 17th perfect game in major league history, the 15th since the modern era began in 1900 and the first since the New York Yankees’ David Cone against Montreal on July 18, 1999.
“It didn’t faze me,” Johnson said. “The bottom line was we needed to win the game. Winning the game was the biggest, most important thing.”
Cy Young, then 37, had been the oldest to throw a perfect game, doing it in 1904.
Johnson sure didn’t act his age, getting stronger as the game went along on a pleasantly warm night in Atlanta.
“Not bad for being 40 years old,” he said. “Everything was locked in.”
While it was the first perfect game of Johnson’s career, it was his second no-hitter. He no-hit Detroit for Seattle on June 2, 1990, walking six.
“That was far from perfect,” he recalled. “I was a very young pitcher who didn’t have any idea where the ball was going. I was far from being a polished pitcher. Fourteen years later, I’ve come a long way as far as knowing what I want to do.”
Aw, that’s great, Randy! I was living in Seattle when he had the no-hitter in 1990. That was a great time to be a Mariners fan. Johnson, Griffey Jr, Martinez, Martinez, Buhner, Charlton, Rodriguez… the list goes on. Great team, good times.
I just can’t get into Chicago baseball. I know that’s sacriligious or something, but it’s not my town and they’re not my teams. But when I lived in Seattle, it was my town, and the Mariners became my team. Maybe it was because I was playing softball with a bunch of people from the neighborhood coffeehouse and we’d go to M’s games in the old Kingdome.
I remember one time when the M’s were in the playoffs, I was on a flight back to Seattle from Denver (this would have been in 1995, I think). The pilot figured out how to put audio from satellite radio or TV on the PA system, and the whole plane listened to the game on their headsets. Then he figure out how to get video. There was a big play, and the plane erupted in joy. Sadly, they eventually got knocked out by… yeah, by that David Cone guy. Grr.
Like I said, good times.