Johnson was at the center of what is certainly one of the great elements of the human drama in the history of Baseball. At the age of 38 (he looked like a 75 year-old coal miner), everyone, but his manager considered him to be a dried up old loser (as in "what have you done for us lately?"). He had lost the 1st and 5th game of the '24 World Series. But, when it came to the moment of truth, when The Big Train was sitting in the dirt out in the bullpen, feeling all washed up, he was called in to close the deal and pitched four scoreless innings to clinch the title. Hero-to-zero-to-hero within hours. I saw this on Burn's "Baseball" set and it was truly moving.
This is the man that Cobb called "...most threatening sight I ever saw in the ball field..." His HOF plaque reads, 'for many years with a losing team'...
