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Props to Randy Johnson for being voted in to the MLB Hall of Fame first year eligible.
Will remember him pitching a perfect game at age 40.
Also him obliterating a bird who picked the wrong time to fly in front of a RJ fastball during a spring training game.

Congrats also to Pedro Martinez, John Smoltz and Craig Biggio.
Too bad for Tim Raines, a great player who spent years in relative obscurity in Montreal.

LazarusLong wrote:Too bad for Tim Raines, a great player who spent years in relative obscurity in Montreal.

One of the players I grew up watching at Olympic Stadium (Pedro was another). Raines deserves to be in there. I think Schilling, Bagwell and Piazza do as well.

I think people remember Andre Dawson for his gaudy offensive stats, but forget how good an all-around player Raines was.

So many good players came through the Expos, including Johnson, who started in the majors first as an Expo before getting traded to Seattle.

No offense meant to Charles Barkley, but Randy Johnson is the greatest athlete in the history of Arizona Sports.

You will get no argument from me.

Two other great RJ moments.

* In Milwaukee, late in his career, he took a wild, looping swing at an outside fastball during an at-bat. The announcers were surprised that he connected, and even more surprised when the ball landed in the bleachers for a home run.

* During a home game, he connected on a fastball and sent a skipping line drive down the foul line for a possible double. He tripped over first base, though, and was held to a single. Next day, as the team took the field for early stretching and practice, somebody had a put a chalk outline of a very tall body near first base. Even Unit laughed at that one ...

To be fair, Charles was much more athletic than Randy. And that isn't saying much. But I would agree that Randy was the most dominant AZ professional sports player (although Taurasi is right there).

Next day, as the team took the field for early stretching and practice, somebody had a put a chalk outline of a very tall body near first base. Even Unit laughed at that one ...

I so wish I would have seen that. I remember him tripping though.

It's put Barkley's dream team year up against any of Randy's seasons as a D-back. He was unstoppable. No one could guard him in the post. No one. Which is why you'd see Cotton and Paul pulling their hair out whenever he would shoot 3's. Because it was just so damn lazy.

Randy won the big prize.

Charles came fairly close.

Game set match.

I loved Charles, but I also hated Charles. It's pretty obvious he never listened to anybody except himself. Sometimes he was unstoppable, but not always. On those games when he didn't have it going he would still demand the ball in the post and shoot 10 bricks in a row no matter what play the coach drew up. Drove me nuts.

Nodack wrote:Randy won the big prize.

Charles came fairly close.

Game set match.

I loved Charles, but I also hated Charles. It's pretty obvious he never listened to anybody except himself. Sometimes he was unstoppable, but not always. On those games when he didn't have it going he would still demand the ball in the post and shoot 10 bricks in a row no matter what play the coach drew up. Drove me nuts.

It's weird, I don't know if it was an interview or a biography, but something that always stood out to me was something Robert Parish said, in comparing himself to McHale and Bird, was that he didn't drink much and took care of himself. That was why he was able to play so much longer. The same thing really goes for Barkley. If he had taken care of himself, I don't think he would have broken down so quickly and we might have had a more legit chance against the Rockets. We would have demolished the Knicks and Magic both years IMO.

I don't think he broke down those years as much as didn't care as much.

carey wrote:It's put Barkley's dream team year up against any of Randy's seasons as a D-back. He was unstoppable. No one could guard him in the post. No one. Which is why you'd see Cotton and Paul pulling their hair out whenever he would shoot 3's. Because it was just so damn lazy.

No one could hit randy either. His 4 cy young seasons from 99-02 were the most overpowering/dominating pitching performance probably ever. His strikeout totals were insane. All of this during the height of the steroid era.

I remember the perfect game against the Braves. That was back when Braves games came on TBS. I watched that game as Randy was on-point the whole night.

Easy first ballot hall-of-famer.

I think Randy Johnson is probably the greatest athlete in Arizona professional sports history.