Dave Johnson
March 30, 2007
The Hall of Anonymity: An Introduction and First Nomination
I.
From the transactions section on Dave Johnson’s page on Baseball-Reference.com:
October 1, 1976: Purchased by the Seattle Mariners from the Baltimore Orioles.
This may not seem like a significant piece of information (and it turns out it really isn’t), but according to the 1976 transactions listed at Retrosheet.org, it is the very first mention of the Seattle Mariners in any major league transaction. It predates the November 5, 1976, expansion draft that provided most of the players (such as Pete Broberg) making up the primordial Seattle Mariner ooze that directly preceded the team’s first season, and also predates the piecemeal acquisition of a handful of players (among them Kurt Bevacqua) who became property of the Mariners on October 22.
Or he would have been.
He would have had this claim to historical significance if he hadn’t found a fate similar to Broberg and Bevacqua. All three of these Cardboard Gods ended up never actually wearing a Seattle Mariner uniform in an official major league game. Bevacqua was released in March, Broberg was traded for a player to be named later in April, and Dave Johnson was sold in May before ever cracking a Seattle Mariner box score. He pitched a few games for the Twins that year, posed for this picture, went 0 and 2 in 1978, and was released at the end of the year, his major league won-loss record fixed forever after at 4 wins and 10 losses.
There’s not really enough chatter here to actually call it a discussion, but I just have to say that even to have a fraction of a discussion develop regarding the relative anonymity of baseball players of the mid- to late-1970s (e.g., Cecil Upshaw vs. Alex Johnson) is very, very pleasing to me. Even the fact that there’s not that much chatter, that it’s not really a discussion, is pleasing. It suggests a near-empty stadium, a few lone figures scattered throughout the stands, a game of no import, players few if any will remember.
It feels like home to me.I am inspired by this feeling, and am now considering the establishment of the negative image of the Hall of Fame (cue the heraldic kazoos)…The Hall of Anonymity.
Dave Johnson broke in with the Baltimore Orioles in 1974, a couple years after the departure from the Orioles of Davey Johnson, a three-time all-star. In 1990, a little over a decade after Dave Johnson’s soundless exit from baseball, a pitcher named Dave Johnson led the Orioles in victories with the modest sum of 13, the highlight of a brief and generally unremarkable career.
In other words, when the name Dave Johnson is mentioned in the context of baseball, it seems likely to draw three responses:
1. Who?
2. You mean Davey Johnson?
3. You don’t mean Davey Johnson? Oh. Hm. Let’s see. Dave Johnson. Dave Johnson. Did he pitch for the Orioles for a couple years in the early ’90s, maybe? Or am I thinking of Jeff Ballard?
In other words, the Dave Johnson pictured here is by virtue of his generic moniker and short, highlight-bereft tenure in the majors obscured on both sides of history by two other players with nearly identical given names.
IV.
I picture the Hall of Anonymity as being located somewhere in the suburban sprawl surrounding the central metropolitan area of a medium-sized city with a nickname that refers either to somewhere else ("The Paris of the Iron Belt!") or to a historical significance that no longer applies ("We Make. The World Takes."). It does not have its own ivied building but has a suite in a corporate center. If you do not own a car you have to take a commuter train to a bus to get there, and from the closest bus stop you will have to walk along the highway briefly before cutting across the kind of corporate lawn that one almost never sees a human figure on unless they are weilding the implements of lawn care. Once you arrive with lawn-dampened sneakers at the low, nondescript building that houses the Hall of Anonymity, you will have to sign in at a security desk before going up to the suite. Your time viewing the exhibition will be rushed slightly by the uncomfortable feeling of being the only person there besides an aging male attendent who oozes loneliness from beneath a thin veneer of desperate cheer. Trying to lessen the uncomfortable feeling, you will attempt to engage the attendent in conversation about baseball. You will point to one of the Etch-A-Sketch renderings that serve as plaques for each of the inductees.
"Boy," you’ll say, "I thought I knew baseball, but I never heard of this guy!"
"Oh, well, I might as well tell you," the attendent will say. "I never much cared for baseball."
"Oh," you’ll say.
"My wife, Etty," the attendent will go on. "Why, she said once to me . . . rest her soul . . . she said . . . "
And he won’t be able to finish, overcome with thoughts of his deceased wife. He’ll weep quietly into his hands. You’ll leave a few minutes later, grabbing one of the cheaply-made Hall of Anonymity brochures for a souvenir on your hurried way out, mumbling "thanks" to the devastated attendent, who by now has resumed displaying his desperate smile. Later you will eat a Twix bar from a candy machine you come upon while trying to find the building’s exit. It will take you a long time to find a gap in the traffic on the four-lane road suitable for you to cross over to catch the bus going back in the direction you came. While waiting for that gap, wondering if it will ever come, your stomach will start to hurt.
V.
But the question remains: who is worthy of induction into this majestic Hall of Anonymity? There are no fixed criteria, no benchmark numbers, no award-winner lists to consult. I suspect this lack of concrete details (along with a lack of interest) will curtail debate on the relative merits of prospective nominees. Yet still I feel compelled to offer my first nominee, while offering little else by way of support for his candidacy than the notes I have included above (his short indistinct career, his never having played for the Mariners undercutting his possible distinction as the first Mariner, his generic name among similar names like a muffled echo among echoes) and an undefined feeling that Dave Johnson just seems right for the Hall of Anonymity. I want to see the photo from this card rendered in Etch-a-Sketch lines and shadings, everything from the word "BRUT" over his left shoulder to the look of slightly mournful but not despairing resignation on his face. It is the face of a man who is neither placidly accepting his fate in the world nor railing angrily against it. I want that face to be on display at the "HOA" for years and years to come.
Or at least until a daydreaming night janitor inadvertently bumps against the plaque and shakes the Etch-A-Sketch screen blank, thus releasing Dave Johnson from the paradoxical celebration of anonymity and back to the pure anonymity from whence he came.
Cardboard Gods 
1. Andy Allanson and Allan Anderson should be enshrined, each with the other’s face Etch-a-Sketched.
2. I’d love to see a guy like this, all but forgotten, come across your stories. Hilarious. I wonder what they would say……
3. I wrote an article once about A’s players that I could not remember at all:
http://catfishstew.baseballtoaster.com/archives/316710.html
I suppose all of them could be nominees.
4. Dave Johnson only struck out one player 3 times or more. He got Butch Hobson to fan THREE times in four ABs! How embarrasing! But, in his other AB against DJ, Hobson went yard on him.
5. Carl Yastrzemski was recently asked, “Who was the toughest pitcher you ever faced?” Without hesitation, Yaz answered, “Y’know, I hit .219 off Catfish Hunter, .243 off JIm Palmer, I banged Whitey Ford around pretty good hitting him at .296, I even clubbed the Jesus out of Nolan Ryan, slapping him around at .340! But, the god-damndest thing was . . . I couldn’t even touch this crap-ass pitcher named Dave Johnson. I faced him five times, and went oh-fer! Toughest guy to hit, ever. Nolan Ryan had nothing on that guy!” [numbers are all true, quote no so much . . . yet, very believable sentiments.]
6. Thanks a lot for those stats, Catfish326. It prompted me to find out who most fully tormented Johnson. It was Mario Guerrerro (3 for 3 lifetime), who is also far and away the all-time leader in most Cardboard God profiles inspired (6)!
7. 6 Ah, it all comes full circle.
I remember voting for Mario Guerrero on the All-Star ballot one time. Don’t know what I was thinking.
8. Hey, check out this game:
baseball-reference.com/boxes/OAK/OAK197804251.shtml
Mario Guerrero, Dave Johnson, and Pete Broberg all played in the same game!
9. 8 Attendance for that battle of the titans (according to the number on the second game of the doubleheader): 4,808. The A’s won both games that day, pushing their record to 13-3. They went 56-90 the rest of the way.
10. 9 And the second game went 14 innings!
Wow, I didn’t remember that they used to schedule mid-week doubleheaders. I remember some Sunday ones, but a Tuesday doubleheader just seems really odd.
11. I nominate the other Bob Gibson for the Hall of Anonymity. One of the Steve Ontiveroses should be enshrined as well.
12. Ken, I had a Dark Ages of sorts wrt to the Red Sox when I was in the Army. I missed most of the Morgan Magic era. Looking at those teams, the names that I don’t recognize at all include Zach Crouch and Dana Williams. The Hobson Era that followed is more of a blur. Peter Hoy? Stan Royer? Brian Bark?
13. Ah, the Red Sox wing of the HOA…
John Trautwein
Bob Zupcic
Win Remmerswaal
14. Just look at DJ’s mustache. Holy Camoly! Interestingly, just yesterday, a business associate of mine, who is much older than I, said, “Did you know that men who have facial hair are introverts?” I said, “sphincter says what?”….After some silence, he echoed his prior statement. He continued to describe to me why his theory was true. I responded with, “I just thought it was 70s thang.” He tried to correct me. Is this true??? Is DJ really trying to hide his insecurities? Is the real reason why he never became a “Nolan Ryan” simply because of his mustache? Josh, what say you?
15. 14 Facial hair = introvert? Sounds like a subject for further investigation. Stay tuned…
16. Josh, I’ve really enjoyed your writing. An inspired addition to the Toaster Mafia.
That is all.
17. I don’t know if it’s true that facial hair == introvert, but I do know that it’s NOT true that introvert == insecure. I’m an introvert, but I neither am insecure nor have facial hair. Although I suppose I might have grown some (hair not insecurities), if my wife didn’t dislike facial hair.
18. I actually remember Dave Johnson from the Twins 1977 bullpen, for two things. One, he and Tom Johnson, who was the fireman of that year’s Twins pen, were called the Band Aid Twins (Johnson and Johnson, geddit?). Also, Dave Johnson fell off the pitching mound and balked in the winning run in something like the 13th inning of a west coast game, causing my 10 year old self to cry out in distress one night around 1am.
You’ve got to be kidding me!!!!
I was googling my 6th grade teacher when I found this, thing is, IT REALLY IS MY TEACHER!!!
Really creepy… he never mentioned anything like this…