Intimidator -- Mariner Ace Randy Johnson Won't Accept The Label, But Foes And Teammates Will Attest To His Imposing Style

PEORIA, Ariz. - It was a bright and brilliant Southwest morning, a languorous few hours buried in the midst of spring when a practice-field B game between Seattle and San Diego took the feel of a prep game found by only friends and families.

The peace was broken only by occasional catcalls from the tiny bleacher stands and the rarely heard chatter from the infield and bench.

And every 30 seconds or so by primal grunts from the mound, followed instantly by the explosion of hard-thrown pitches into the catcher's mitt.

Randy Johnson was at work.

Wondering how they wound up so unlucky under a Fredrick Remington sky, the Padres went to the plate like a succession of dead men walking. At one point, veteran slugger Rob Deer came back to the dugout holding the shattered remains of what had been a bat, from which jagged splinters spoked out after the lightning strike of a Johnson fastball.

"I hit it on the barrel," Deer said in disbelief. Damage like that usually comes from contact with the bat handle.

In the on-deck circle, Archi Cianfrocco looked away with a mirthless smile. He would be next. He popped out weakly. "Facing the (Big) Unit," he said later, "is intimidating if you have any sense. It's something you don't look forward to, get out of the way as best you can and then rarely forget. Getting a hit off him you don't forget."

Intimidating. The word comes up again and again about Randy Johnson, although this year not from him.

"Why do you call me intimidating?" the Mariners' Cy Young left-hander groused. "The media puts that on me. I don't call myself an intimidator."

Puleez. Last year, when the Yankees' Jim Leyritz reacted to being hit by Johnson by threatening to beat him up, the 6-foot-10 pitcher laughed, saying, "He's trying to intimidate the intimidator."

If Johnson this season wants to wear a pacifist mask, attribute it to a personality that can be as tough to figure as his pitches are to hit.

"Maybe it's my size, or the way I look; maybe it's my long hair," said Johnson, who could be mistaken for a tall Hell's Angel. "Maybe I just look nasty."

No, said former Mariner Vince Coleman. "Randy acts nasty on the mound. One of the best things about coming over to Seattle last year was not having to face the Unit. One of the best things about being back in the National League this year (Cincinnati) is not having to face the Unit. But in case I wind up back in that league, tell him I said `hi.' "

Facing Johnson could come with a warning from the surgeon general. On one hand it isn't as hazardous as it used to be, since Johnson pitches now, whereas he once launched. On the other, there was the Kingdome day two years ago when a young Angel named Rod Correia got three hits off him. Fourth time up, Johnson buried a fastball in Correia's midsection.

"That pitch got away from me," Johnson insisted this spring as he had insisted, innocent as a rookie, back then. "I'm not like Roger Clemens. Anyone who hits him hard stands a good chance of getting drilled his next at-bat."

Can Johnson swear he's never tried to hit a batter? He does not answer right away. Instead he grins, and finally says, " . . . yeah."

Like Clemens, Johnson is a throwback to a purer, more painful era of baseball. He harkens memories of Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson, Sal "The Barber" Maglie, who earned his nickname for the way he pitched, legitimately tough men to whom a knockdown was part of a pitching repertoire, who retaliated willingly when a teammate was hit by a pitch.

"The game has changed so much," said Stan Williams, a Kansas City scout once a fearsome sight on the mound in the 1950s and 1960s. "The rules have taken away much of a pitcher's ability to work inside, made it more of a hitter's game. Accidents do happen, batters do get hit by accident, but when pitchers get tossed so easily, most are reluctant to come in."

Not that Williams hit many batters by accident. One story is that he had a clause in his Dodger contract that provided bonus money if he allowed fewer than 50 walks in a season. So when the count reached three balls on a batter he could afford to have on base, Williams would hit him instead of risking his bonus. "I think I recall something along those lines," Williams said, laughing. "The good old days."

Jim Kaat, who pitched from the 1950s to the 1980s, recalled the time Billy Martin was managing Minnesota and told his pitchers to knock down slugger Reggie Jackson. The next day, Minnesota's catcher told Jackson to "stay alive in the batter's box." Dick Woodson then sailed a pitch over Jackson's head.

"The catcher told him next pitch, be alive again," Kaat recalled. "Reggie said, `That happens next pitch, I'm going out to the mound.' Woodson threw the next pitch over his head again and Reggie charged. That's how it used to be. Now everyone's too sensitive, with quick warnings from umpires and all."

Johnson, husband and father (soon for a second time, a boy), is probably a sensitive guy down deep, a musician (he pounds drums) and pretty good photographer. But he sounded playfully puzzled when he said, "Maybe it's my attitude. My wife Lisa said as it got closer to starting spring training she didn't like me as much."

Closer it gets to game time, it's uncertain if anyone likes Johnson or vice versa. On game days he sticks to himself and glowers balefully at anyone who comes near.

"How can I be intimidating to a big guy like Frank Thomas?" Johnson said. "You think he'd be afraid to charge the mound? I doubt it."

No one has gone out after Johnson, who towers over the baseball world from the mound. Former Montreal and Seattle teammate Brian Holman told the story of one player in the Class A Florida State League who Johnson knocked down. "The kid got up and looked like he was going to charge the mound," Holman said. "Randy came to the front of the mound and yelled, `Come out here and I'll take your life.' He didn't go out."

Johnson said that never happened.

He has, however, been known to yell at batters. In a B game against San Diego two years ago, he hollered "Swing harder!" as he struck out one hitter after another. "That was because I was just trying to get in my work and they were coming out of their shoes swinging so hard," he said. "I wasn't trying to intimidate anyone."

Indeed, he isn't as bad as brash Dennis Eckersley, who as a flame-throwing rookie with Cleveland would get two strikes on a batter and yell at the on-deck hitter, "You're next!"

"I did do that, didn't I?" The Eck said this spring, 20 years older. "What an idiot. What did I know? If that was intimidating, I never even knew it. I was just cocksure of myself, a punk."

Johnson admits he has drawn cautions from veterans such as Chili Davis. "I remember one game against the Angels a couple of years ago, I got a new ball and was rubbing it up and I guess I was staring at some young hitter although I didn't realize it. The next day Chili said to me, `Don't try to intimidate our kids.' But I wasn't."

Ken Griffey Jr. heard Johnson tell that tale and it reminded him of facing Nolan Ryan, who made intimidation a part of his game, as a first-year player in 1989. "I got the count to 3-1 and Nolan came toward the plate to get a new ball and he said clearly, `I can't believe I can't throw a strike to a damn rookie.' I heard all about him, and the next two pitches I was on my toes in the box. He got me: strike out, sit down and breathe a sigh of relief."

In Johnson's mind, he couldn't possibly be as intimidating as he was "four or five years ago," when he had no idea where his pitches were going. That changed in 1993 after he had a career-altering talk with Ryan that turned him from a thrower into a pitcher.

"I was scared to throw inside I was so wild," he said of leading the league in walks three straight years, often with more anger to his work than artistry. "Now I have an idea."

"And that makes him tougher to deal with," Coleman said. "Now he has confidence to pitch inside. He still throws hard. With control or not, he throws so damn hard. That's as scary as anything."