Walter Perry Johnson (November 6, 1887 – December 10, 1946), nicknamed "Barney" and "the Big Train", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year baseball career in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a right-handed pitcher for the Washington Senators from 1907 to 1927. He later served as manager of the Senators from 1929 through 1932 and of the Cleveland Indians from 1933 through 1935.
Generally regarded as one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history, Johnson established several records, some of which remain unbroken. He remains by far the all-time career leader in shutouts with 110, second in wins with 417, and fourth in complete games with 531. He held the career record in strikeouts from 1919, passing Christy Mathewson’s mark of 2,507, until 1983, when three players (Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan and Gaylord Perry) passed his career total of 3,508. On July 22, 1923, Johnson became the first pitcher to record 3,000 strikeouts. He remained the only player to do so until Bob Gibson matched the feat on July 17, 1974. Of the club's 20 members, he pitched the most innings and has the lowest strikeouts per nine innings pitched (5.34 K/9). Johnson led the league in strikeouts for 12 total seasons, 8 of which were consecutive, both all-time records. He is the only pitcher in Major League history to record more than 400 wins and strike out more than 3,500 batters.
In 1936, Johnson was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members.
Walter Perry Johnson was born on November 6, 1887, in Humboldt, Kansas. Johnson was the second of six children (Effie, Leslie, Earl, Blanche) born to Frank Edwin Johnson (1861–1921) and Minnie Olive Perry (1867–1967) on a rural farm four miles west of Humboldt, Kansas on November 6, 1887. Although he was sometimes said to be of Swedish ancestry and referred to by sportswriters as "the Big Swede," Johnson's ancestors came from the British Isles.
Soon after his fourteenth birthday, his family moved to California's Orange County in 1902. The Johnsons settled in the town of Olinda, a small oil boomtown located just east of Brea. In his youth, Johnson split his time among playing baseball, working in the nearby oil fields, and going horseback riding. Johnson later attended Fullerton Union High School where he struck out 27 batters during a 15-inning game against Santa Ana High School. He later moved to Idaho, where he doubled as a telephone company employee and a pitcher for a team in Weiser, of the Idaho State League. Johnson was spotted by catcher/scout Cliff Blankenship and signed a contract with the Washington Senators in July 1907 at the age of 19.
Washington Senators (1907–1927)
Johnson was renowned as the premier power pitcher of his era. Ty Cobb recalled his first encounter with the rookie fastballer:
On August 2, 1907, I encountered the most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field. He was a rookie, and we licked our lips as we warmed up for the first game of a doubleheader in Washington.... The first time I faced him, I watched him take that easy windup. And then something went past me that made me flinch. The thing just hissed with danger. We couldn't touch him.... Every one of us knew we'd met the most powerful arm ever turned loose in a ball park.
In 1917, a Bridgeport, Connecticut, munitions laboratory recorded Johnson's fastball at 134 feet per second, which is equal to 91 miles per hour (146 km/h), a velocity that may have been unmatched in his day, with the possible exception of Smoky Joe Wood. Johnson, moreover, pitched with a sidearm motion, whereas power pitchers are usually known for pitching with a straight overhand delivery. Johnson's motion was especially difficult for right-handed batters to follow, as the ball seemed to be coming from third base. His pitching mechanics were superb, generating powerful rotation of his shoulders with excellent balance. In addition to his fastball, Johnson featured an occasional curveball that he developed around 1913 or 1914. He batted and threw right-handed.
The overpowering fastball was the primary reason for Johnson's exceptional statistics, especially his fabled strikeout totals. Johnson's record total of 3,508 strikeouts stood for more than 55 years until Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, and Gaylord Perry all surpassed it in that order during the 1983 season. Johnson, as of 2026, ranks eleventh on the all-time strikeout list, but his total must be understood in its proper context of an era of much fewer strikeouts. Among his pre–World War II contemporaries, only two men finished within 1,000 strikeouts of Johnson: runner-up Cy Young with 2,803 (705 strikeouts behind) and Tim Keefe at 2,562 (946 behind). Bob Feller, whose war-shortened career began in 1936, later ended up with 2,581.
As a right-handed pitcher for the Washington Senators, Walter Johnson won 417 games, the second most by any pitcher in history (after Cy Young, who won 511). He and Young are the only pitchers to have won 400 games.
In a 21-year career, Johnson had twelve 20-win seasons, including ten in a row. Twice, he topped 30 wins (33 in 1912 and 36 in 1913). Johnson's record includes 110 shutouts, the most in baseball history. Johnson had a 38–26 record in games decided by a 1–0 score; both his wins and losses in these games are major league records. Johnson also lost 65 games because his teams failed to score a run. On September 4, 5 and 7, 1908, he shut out the New York Highlanders in three consecutive games.
Three times, Johnson won the triple crown for pitchers (1913, 1918 and 1924). Johnson twice won the American League Most Valuable Player Award (1913, 1924), a feat accomplished since by only two other pitchers, Carl Hubbell in 1933 and 1936 and Hal Newhouser in 1944 and 1945.
His earned run average of 1.14 in 1913 was the fourth-lowest ever at the time he recorded it; it remains the sixth-lowest today, despite having been surpassed by Bob Gibson in 1968 (1.12) for lowest ERA ever by a 300+ inning pitcher. It could have been lower if not for one of manager Clark Griffith's traditions. For the last game of the season, Griffith often treated the fans to a farce game. Johnson actually played center field that game until he was brought in to pitch. He allowed two hits before he was taken out of the game. The next pitcher—who was actually a career catcher—allowed both runners to score. The official scorekeeper ignored the game, but later, Johnson was charged with those two runs, raising his ERA from 1.09 to 1.14. For the decade from 1910 to 1919, Johnson averaged 26 wins per season and had an overall ERA of 1.59.
Johnson won 36 games in 1913, 40% of the team's total wins for the season. In April and May, he pitched 552⁄3 consecutive scoreless innings, which stood as the MLB record for 55 years and as of 2024 remains the American League's best and third-longest streak in history. He won 25 games and lost 20 games in 1916, the last pitcher to win and lose 20 in a season until knuckleballer Wilbur Wood did so in 1973. In May 1918, Johnson pitched 40 consecutive scoreless innings; he is the only pitcher with two such 40+ inning streaks.
Although he often pitched for losing teams during his career, Johnson finally led the Washington Senators to the World Series in 1924, his 18th year in the American League. Johnson lost the first and fifth games of the 1924 World Series, but became the hero by pitching four scoreless innings of relief in the seventh and deciding game, winning in the 12th inning. Washington returned to the World Series the following season, but Johnson's experience was close to the inverse: two early wins, followed by a game seven loss. On October 15, 1927, Johnson's request for an unconditional release from the club was granted.
Johnson's Hall of Fame plaque reads that he pitched "for many years with a losing team." While the Senators had only nine winning seasons during his career, they finished in the first division (i. e., fourth place or higher) 11 times, and the second division 10 times. In Johnson's first five seasons, Washington finished last twice and next-to-last three times. But they finished second in the American League in both 1912 and 1913, which were Johnson's two 30-win seasons. Then, for the next decade, they typically finished in the middle of the pack before their back-to-back pennants.