Walter Johnson Through His Daughter's Eyes

By many standards, Walter Johnson (nickname The Big Train) was the greatest pitcher who ever lived (He is ranked #1 according to the Fan EloRater on Baseball-Reference.com). Sure, Cy Young had more victories. Others had more career strikeouts and lower lifetime ERA. But Walter Johnson had the most shutouts of any pitcher ever - 110. He was incredibly durable, winding up with the 3rd most innings pitched and the 3rd highest number of batters faced. Johnson put together some of the best pitching seasons in history. He was twice AL MVP, and thrice the pitching Triple Crown winner.

Walter Johnson, who died in 1946, is long gone. But his legacy lives on through his daughter Carolyn Thomas, who was born in 1923, toward the end of her father's baseball career. Her mother died when she was 7, so Carolyn was raised in large part by her famous dad.

In the course of my research, I was fortunate enough to speak with Ms. Thomas, who still lives in the vicinity of her father's old team, the Senators, at some length and get some firsthand accounts of this amazing legend.

We all know that some of the great players were not especially congenial people. So, what kind of person was Johnson?

“He was a quiet person. He just wanted to lead a quiet life. He didn’t like the spotlight very much. He realized he had to put up with some of it, and he was gracious about it, but he certainly never sought it out, and certainly he was not interested in politics, he was a county commissioner…I think the way I would describe him is good natured. He was a really nice guy. He wasn’t pious, pontifical. He wasn’t judgmental or anything like that, he was a nice guy. He had a nice sense of humor. He loved ice cream. We could always go to the store and eat as many Eskimo pies as we wanted. He tried awful hard to make up for mother’s loss.”

Ms. Thomas remembers attending baseball games with her dad: 

“We didn’t think of him as a baseball player, of course. Although we did when we went to the stadium. It always took forever to get in because people wanted his autograph. I can remember being kind of surly about that, taking so long to get into the stadium for the game. People recognized him. He never brushed anybody off. He would always stop and sign whatever they handed him.”  

Talking to the baseball players of the 40s and 50s is a great thrill. But talking to the child of one of the greats of an earlier era is a very special and different kind of thrill, a leap even further back in the baseball time machine. There is nobody alive who knew Walter Johnson better than his daughter. I am grateful that she took some time to help me get to know him, too.