When Hall of Famer Randy Johnson took the mound, his fastball created a frenzy.
Now that he’s retired, “Big Unit” is still working on the sizzle dish, but this time it’s steak.
Johnson, a 22-year major league star with the Montreal Expos, Seattle Mariners, Houston Astros, Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Yankees and San Francisco Giants, has come out of retirement (for now, at least) for a new commercial campaign in which he coaches a youth baseball team similar to the Bad News Bears.
You’ve probably heard, “We’re going to Disney World!” In Johnson’s case, it’s “We’re going to Sizzler!”
Johnson took on the task of improving the baseball skills of the winless Simi Valley (Calif.) RiverDogs. The RiverDogs never won a single game under his guidance, but they did earn a trip to a famous steakhouse that has been serving steaks since 1958.
“The premise of the commercial is I come in and help this team win, and then they go to Sizzler to celebrate. And right after I made my debut as coach, they played another team and unfortunately they lost, but they ended up scoring one point so they got to go to Sizzler,” Johnson said with a laugh.
Johnson recently spoke with Fan Nation’s Fastball about his baseball career and his acting career, focusing specifically on his time with the Seattle Mariners. (Some answers have been edited for length.)
Brady Farkas: Randy, I remember you having a small role on “Little Big League” as a kid and you recently appeared in a commercial for DirectTV, is acting your secret passion?
Randy Johnson: Well, I guess you could say my acting skills are limited, but it’s just fun. I’ve done it a few times before, and if they ask me, I’m happy to do it. I work as hard as I can to accommodate their requests. It’s kind of breaking up my daily, monthly, yearly routine. This year has been great. I got asked by Sizzler to do something, and then I got asked by DirecTV, which you mentioned. I was really lucky to get those two jobs. It’s been a lot of fun.
BF: A lot of people think of you as an Arizona Diamondbacks player, but I think of you as a star with the Seattle Mariners. Tell me about the Mariners in 1995. They weren’t in the World Series, but where did that season stand for you?
RJ: That was my World Series and it was the Mariners World Series. It was their World Series. That’s what kept the team in Seattle. That was their bargaining chip. That was their bargaining chip based on what we did in ’95. That was their bargaining chip to get a new ballpark. At the time, the team wanted a new ballpark, and the city wasn’t going to give them a new ballpark. You know, the payoff wasn’t enough to put anything out there to ask for public funding, because they were a .500 team. But in ’95, the whole team turned things around. It was an inspiring, inspirational year. And it happened to be the most important year in Mariners history.
And if we hadn’t done that, they might not have had their new stadium across the street from where it used to be. They might be in Florida…. So it was a very important, important year…. It was exciting. It was my first World Series, even though I had nothing to base it off of, and for me, it wasn’t. That’s my ranking. It was very special…
Johnson also talked about the famous 1997 game in which he threw 142 pitches to complete the game and gave up a 538-foot home run to Oakland Athletics’ Mark McGwire. We asked Johnson about throwing so many pitches and how the dynamics of extending games worked under manager Lou Piniella.
RJ: I think me and Lou worked well together, but I had to earn his trust. I had to show that what I was doing between the lines justified what he would have me do…I earned his respect on the mound, and he just said, “Hey, I don’t have to go up to you all the time and ask how you’re doing…I trust you, Randy. You let me know when you want to go out there, when you’re feeling good, and just keep going.”
“And I guess I had to earn it from him… I guess that was kind of the relationship between me and Lou, but it was all based on earning his trust and being the ace of the staff for the eight years that I was there. There were a lot of people there that counted on me, and that was to be expected. With all of that, a lot was expected of me. I had a lot of fun with Lou Piniella. I enjoyed pitching for him, and I wanted to win for him as a manager because I knew how passionate he was about winning, having been in the games himself…”
Johnson spent eight seasons with the Mariners, compiling a 130-74 record during that time. In 1995, he won the Cy Young Award after going 18-2. Johnson is a five-time Cy Young Award winner. He was an All-Star 10 times and won the World Series in 2001. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015. He is also a member of the Mariners Hall of Fame.
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