Search

Profiles baseball pitcher Randy Johnson and his frustration with the Arizona Diamondbacks. A 4-30 streak at week's end--capped by Sunday's 3-2 loss in which Johnson pitched eight shutout innings and struck out a season-high 14 but watched the bullpen blow a 1-0 lead--dropped the Diamondbacks below the vagabond Montreal Expos for baseball's worst record (31-69) and put them on track to lose 112 times. New York and Boston are short on the quality, major-league-ready prospects Arizona seeks and thus may have to involve a third club to acquire Johnson. Anaheim is loaded with such rising stars, including third baseman Dallas McPherson, catcher Jeff Mathis and first baseman Casey Kotchman, but with the seventh-best record in the AL through Sunday the Angels are not the October lock that Johnson seeks.

Profiles Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson, pitchers for the Arizona Diamondbacks. The friendship between the players, and the idea that each strengthens the other; Their contention for the Cy Young award; Topic of the 2001 World Series; Observation that both men want to win, in spite of their different personalities; Family life of the two men.

Looks at the performance of Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling, who pitched three straight complete games in the postseason. Idea that pitching is the reason that the Diamondbacks reached the World Series; View that the League Championship Series showcased the value of the pitchers; Performance of the New York Yankees team.

Focuses on Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Randy Johnson. Performance in the first month of the 2000 baseball season; Development of a deep repertoire of pitches, including a sinker and a two-seam fastball; Mastery of his slider; Comparisons to pitchers Sandy Koufax and Pedro Martinez; Ability to regularly pitch a high number of innings.

Focuses on the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball team. History of the second-year expansion team's difficulties, including losses and lack of fan support; Success of the team in 1999; Importance of their two victories over the Eastern Division-leading Atlanta Braves in a three-game series; Game details; Comments from manager Buck Showalter and others.

This article presents an analysis of the Arizona Diamondbacks at the outset of the 2004 baseball season. In his first spring training appearance this year, before a sparse midweek crowd in Tucson, Diamondbacks ace Randy Johnson shooed away one photographer whom he deemed too close to him during his warmup session, threatened to unloose a brushback pitch at another, barked at the home plate umpire over the ump's interpretation of the strike zone, snapped 90-mph sliders at the ankles of Colorado hitters and whistled 96-mph fastballs past them. Yes, as they say in Arizona, it was a dry heat, but whenever Johnson's fastball and his disposition redline--especially after a season shortened by right-knee surgery in May--manager Bob Brenly smiles. The Diamondbacks, minus the Airstreams and canasta clubs, are, like many people in Arizona, testing the desert's therapeutic effects on old bones. In addition to Johnson(Randy Johnson) they have a 39-year-old centerfielder, a 36-year-old second baseman coming off the two worst seasons of his career and a 36-year-old leftfielder with a torn ligament in his throwing elbow. The Diamondbacks' offense, which ranked 10th in the league in runs and 12th in home runs last year, figures to be better with the addition of first baseman Richie Sexson, 29, who blasted 119 homers over the past three seasons with Milwaukee.

The suits who run the major leagues are at it again. They've come up with the outlandish idea that pitches thrown over the plate should be strikes and those that are not should be balls. Umpires and pitchers are having a hard time getting their heads around this notion. A revolution has ensued, of which the first shot was fired May 24 when frustrated Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling made like Sean Penn and smashed a $5,000 camera with a bat after a 5-1 loss to the Padres in Phoenix. The camera was one of two at the park used by the Umpire Information System, run by a company called QuesTec. The system, said to be accurate to within half an inch, uses technology developed by the military to measure whether a pitch catches any part of the strike zone. After the game the home plate umpire gets a CD showing how his calls stood up to QuesTec's measurements. Schilling, whose complaint was echoed by the Braves on Sunday, said after his camera assault that an umpire urged him to "break the other one" and that "multiple times" umps have told him they're calling some pitches balls simply because of the QuesTec factor. The umpires have filed a grievance with the league, contending that the system isn't a "reasonable means to assess" their performance.