Randy Johnson Wins 300
Randy Johnson won his 300th game on Thursday, proving everyone who said we wouldn’t see another 300 winner after Tom Glavine wrong.
Lets look back at Johnson’s phenomenal career through his appearances in the old US-Japan Nichibei Series, which used to take place in November of even-numbered years.
1990
Johnson vs. Hiromitsu Ochiai
Johnson vs. Koji Akiyama
Johnson vs. Akinobu Okada
Interestingly, Ochiai and Akiyama are now managing NPB teams, and Okada ran Hanshin for five years. Note that Johnson is pretty wild here, and is inconsistent with his follow through. Still, none of the hitters look good against him.
Now let’s fast forward ten years, to 2000.
2000
Johnson vs Hideki Matsui
Johnson vs Tsuyoshi Shinjo
Johnson vs Norihiro Nakamura
Interestingly, all of these guys played in the majors in the years following this series. Johnson looks a lot more mature as a pitcher and a lot more fluid with his mechanics. He made Shinjo look like a fool in that at bat, though Shinjo was actually pretty good overall in the series.
06/06/2009 at 3:04 am Permalink
Great collection of clips! Neat variety of retro NPB uniforms from 1990, and added bonus of Cecil Fielder playing first for the MLB all stars. And in 2000 another future MLBer So Taguchi’s on 2nd during Nakamura’s at bat after he hit a double off Randy.
07/06/2009 at 6:13 am Permalink
That was fun.
Yeah, I noticed Cecil Fielder too. Probably everyone who cares about it knows he’s father of Prince Fielder, the current first baseman for Milwaukee. But I was looking into his (Cecil) stats after I saw this video and noticed that he played for Hanshin in 1989. So, there’s a little trivia from a guy who knows almost nothing about Japanese baseball.