Don't Touch His O.J.: Randy Johnson Announces His Retirement

Most of the Giants news outlets have put out this news - I don't feel like linking to all of them - but I do want to link to this nice article by CBS Sport's Scott Miller on Randy Johnson and his career.

My title refers to the anecdote that Miller provides at the start of his article. Apparently he monitored the level of his orange juice so that he would know if his roommate was taking any from him.

What is more important is the behind the scene story about what Randy Johnson did to become the great pitcher that he was. The article goes into some detail of all the things he would do to prepare himself to compete throughout his career. The Giants Way manual that Neukom was talking about creating could have one chapter which simply would be this article detailing Johnson's methods to his greatness and that would be a good chapter for pitchers. If the Giants were smart, they would have had someone studying Johnson's methods, documenting them, and preserving it for the Giants future pitchers to read and study.

Thanks to Randy Johnson for coming to San Francisco and being a strong example for Lincecum, Cain, and Sanchez to study from. Heck, probably Madison Bumgarner too, being a lefty and on the club for almost the month of September, I would hope he bent Johnson's ear and I would bet that Johnson would have gone and bent Bumgarner's ear anyway.

Given his accomplishments, if he's not a unanimous first year Hall of Fame inductee in five years, the voters who didn't vote for him should lose their eligibility. He has done amazing things, probably nothing more amazing than winning 300 games despite not being very good his first full season, then only average for another 3, before finally putting it together at age 29.

Then he had one heck of a run: 6 seasons with Seattle (plus brief Houston) averaging nearly 16 wins per season, then 6 seasons with Arizona averaging 17 wins per season, then 2 seasons with the Yankees at 17 wins per season. 14 years, 231 wins, average of 16.5 wins per season. One of the best sprints to 300 wins done mostly on the wrong side of 30.

Enjoy your retirement, it was well earned.