Radio-Friendly Unit Shifte -- 1998 Redux?

"If you don't trade him to the Yankees, you are going to have one unhappy player." -- Randy Johnson's agent, Barry Meister

"And how would I tell the difference?" - Diamondbacks GM Joe Garagiola, Jr.

Here we go again.

For the second time in his Hall Of Fame career, Randy Johnson has decided that it is his obligation to hold hostage the team he is playing for. After trying to deal the Big Unit to several teams per his request, the D-Backs have now been issued the following chilling ultimatum by Johnson and his representatives:

"It's the Yankees or nothing".

With the ability to veto any deal, Johnson holds all the cards in this fiasco. And he's going to (apparently) use that juice to become the latest in a sickeningly long line of players kneeling in line for the Steinbrenner green like altar boys waiting for communion wafers.

In the same year he amassed 4,000 career strikeouts and became the oldest pitcher in major league history to throw a perfect game, Johnson will most likely be remembered for another defining characteristic -- a prickly, moody, loner personality that often has had him on the outs with the same executives, teammates and fans who nonetheless admired his unbelievable talent. Like Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, Randy has often been revered, but seldom liked. And he's never seemed to care.

As a longtime Mariner fan, I'll remember him as the "who the HELL is that guy" throw-in the M's got as part of a trade for then-ace Mark Langston in 1989. Like the embryonic Koufax, he had demon speed and little control � just another Steve Dalkowski/Newk Laloosh �million-dollar arm and a five-cent head� guy.

But through the early 1990's, Johnson slowly found his groove. He sought counsel from Nolan Ryan, perfected the nastiest slider in baseball history and drew strength from teammates like Griffey and A-Rod (back when he resembled a human being), as well as fire-breathing manager Lou Piniella. By 1995, he was ready. And in the season that defined the Mariners, he was the rock � he went 18-2 with a 2.49 ERA, with 294 strikeouts and 65 walks. An evil glare, a ridiculous wingspan and an old-school attitude made him the most intimidating pitcher in baseball.

Through the '96 and '97 seasons, he kept up his brilliant performance level, beginning to establish himself as a dominant lefty on the level of Koufax and Carlton. And then, in 1998, all hell broke loose.

A free agent at the end of the '98 season, Johnson opened negotiations with Chuck Armstrong, the M's offensive and clueless vice-president. Bad move � Armstrong (still the team's president today) never met a negotiation he couldn't bollix or a player he couldn't devalue and offend. Johnson had rabbit ears anyway � when Armstrong began to insinuate in the press that he was washed up and that the team could do just as well without him, Randy was as good as gone after '98.

He sulked through the first half of the year, going 9-10 with a 4.33 ERA. Desperate to get him off the books and make some sort of positive from that which they had wrought, the M's unloaded him to the Astros at the trade deadline for prospects Freddy Garcia, Carlos Guillen and John Halama. After joining the Astros, the Big Unit reeled off 10 wins in 11 starts, posting a 1.28 ERA along with four shutouts.

The Astros hoped to ride the Unit to the World Series that year, but he went 0-2 in the NLDS against the Padres and headed off to Arizona. From 1999-2003, he authored one of the more dominant extended pitching performances we'll ever see, and he picked up the World Series ring he had wanted all along in 2001, beating the snot out of the Yankees (HA!).

And now, with the D-Backs in flux, and an owner in Jerry Colangelo who has proven to possess the financial acumen of a stoat, Johnson will get on his horse and ride off - the man with no name again.

There is a collective of people who will say that Randy Johnson had every right to be angry with Chuck Armstrong, every right to be frustrated with the Diamondbacks' current woes and every right to look out for his own best interests. And to a point, those people would be correct.

But what those people fail to understand is that part of the reason you give a player as much money as the Diamondbacks have given Johnson ($17 million this year) is an implicit agreement that the player will do everything in his power to lift his teammates to victory. That maybe, just maybe, that player will serve as an example to the younger players on his team (the same sort of example Nolan Ryan � a pitcher on an opposing team � was to Johnson early on).

This implicit agreement means nothing to Randy Johnson. So, he will most likely head off to the one place where victory is virtually guaranteed � the one place where victory is about as meaningful as his own sense of obligation. And emotionally, it is very difficult for me to drop the illusion I had of a player I always admired.

I'll always remember the 6�10� pitcher with the evil glare and the snappy slider. But the man became a little smaller in all of this.

Looking at it objectively, however, we have to ask ourselves the following questions:

Q. If Randy Johnson had demanded a trade to ANY OTHER TEAM, would we be crying foul?

A. No. The Yankees are fundamentally evil, they must be stopped, and Johnson's sudden and repulsive urge to wear the pinstripes is but another manifestation of that fact.

Q. Does George Steinbrenner have every right to monopolize baseball and treat it as his own personal Costco?

A. Yes, he does. If you live in a country where theft is legal and you rob everyone in your community of everything they own on the basic principle of, "I WANT IT! MINE! MINE! MINE!", you are "playing by the rules". You are also likely guaranteeing yourself an all-expenses-paid trip to the place where the little red guy with the pitchfork does his business (if you happen to believe in such concepts).

Q. Should folks like Bud Selig, Don Fehr and Gene Orza be vivisected as a group for letting things get this bad?

A. Yes. As a matter of fact, you could sell tickets.

Q. Does it bother George Steinbrenner that he's regarded by most as a fat, soulless, criminal badger's ass who is ruining baseball for his own selfish reasons?

A. No. �Nice� team owners aren't the subjects of withering biographies, �SportsCentury� documentaries, �Seinfeld� episodes, and VISA commercials. Mr. Steinbrenner understands that true bastards live forever in the public consciousness. And if you ask that question again, Mr. Steinbrenner will buy YOU and force you to appear on the Tim McCarver Show.

Q. AIEEE!