Happy Birthday, Jonathan Johnson

by Adam J. Morris on Jul 16, 2009 2:45 PM CDT

Happy birthday to Jonathan Johnson, who turns 35 today.

Johnson was the Rangers' first round draft pick in 1995, #7 overall, in Doug Melvin's first draft with the Rangers, and he sort of set the tone for Melvin's drafts, which were pretty uniformly awful when he was with Texas.

Melvin picked Johnson in large part because he was perceived to be close to major league ready and he wanted someone who could contribute quickly. Johnson, as it turned out, was in the majors by 1998, but never really did much and last pitched in the majors in 2003.

The Rangers passed up University of Tennessee QB Todd Helton to pick Johnson, and another guy known as a UT QB, Shea Morenz, went later in the first round to the Yankees, as well as QB Chad Hutchinson going to the Braves (not to be confused with Chad Hermansen, who also went in the first round, to the Pirates).

And if you really want to dwell on things, Roy Halladay went #17 overall that year to the Jays.

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but if we drafted Roy Halladay

he’d be jonathan johnson and jonathan johnson would be roy halladay.

usa

by Longhorn on Jul 16, 2009 2:50 PM CDT reply actions

These are the kinds of thoughts...

…that swim throgh my head when I read that we gave away certain pitchers. I’m always thinking “is it even slightly possible that they would have been nearly as good if they’d stayed?”

I have no objection to man walking on the moon.

by Chad Crudup on Jul 16, 2009 3:08 PM CDT up reply actions

Yeah

pitching development during the Melvin era was definitely a thing of wonder.

"I saw a soldier try to dig a foxhole with his bare hands. He didn't notice that he'd torn off all his fingernails. I got him out of there quickly; not for his sake, but for ours. Fear is poison in combat...destructive, contagious." - Band of Brothers

by DJCahill on Jul 16, 2009 3:10 PM CDT up reply actions

The legend of Jovanny Cedeno

by Michael Cave on Jul 16, 2009 3:55 PM CDT up reply actions

I remember finding his rookie card in a pack of Topps and thinking he was going to be the shit

by oc on Jul 16, 2009 2:58 PM CDT reply actions

JJ

The only player (as far as I know) that got really pissed at me over something I wrote.

by Jamey Newberg on Jul 16, 2009 3:06 PM CDT reply actions

You must have been...

…particularly truthful in that piece.

I have no objection to man walking on the moon.

by Chad Crudup on Jul 16, 2009 3:07 PM CDT up reply actions

...which was...

by oc on Jul 16, 2009 3:11 PM CDT up reply actions

That's funny, because...

…the other thing that sticks in my mind about Johnson is that, way back in the day (like, 8 years ago or so), someone on NMLR (not you, don’t remember who) posted that posters there needed to quit saying that such-and-such player “sucked” or was a “bust,” because players and their families read the boards, and JJ’s family had quit reading because of the ugly things posters there had said about him.

by Adam J. Morris on Jul 16, 2009 3:15 PM CDT up reply actions

That's funny.

You would think that folks signing on for a job where $400K/year is minimum wage plus lifetime medical for one game in the majors would understand that the job comes with a shit ton of criticism.

Most people don’t do jobs where 10K-40K people per night are watching them and applauding or criticizing their every move.

by DJCahill on Jul 16, 2009 3:19 PM CDT up reply actions

I donno dude

I do that at restaurants ALL the time

"Hang-Dai, Wu...Hang-Fu$&ing-Dai"

by Walter Sobchak on Jul 16, 2009 4:14 PM CDT up reply actions

Maybe it was R.A. Dickey who posted it.

R.A. was the one who came up to me in camp one year and told me JJ was pissed because “he wouldn’t allow things like I was writing to come into his house, because his wife might read them.”

by Jamey Newberg on Jul 16, 2009 3:27 PM CDT up reply actions

I can imagine

with all the profanities you use and all.

by DJCahill on Jul 16, 2009 3:31 PM CDT up reply actions

I would have

been happy to take his signing bonus and handle the criticism.

by Michael Cave on Jul 16, 2009 3:54 PM CDT up reply actions

That was before my time

I can’t imagine that you were just ranting and raving about JJ just because. Did his wife have a problem with reading the words of a super fan discussing his team in a respectful, hopeful manner?

"andruw jones hits 3 HRS at LA of Anaheim last nite after hitting zero at LA of LA as Dodger in all of '08. thats nuts." SI_JonHeyman

by WestTxAg06 on Jul 16, 2009 8:31 PM CDT up reply actions

Seriously

Newberg is the last person I could ever see a player getting mad at, maybe back in the day he was a little more harsh.

by ScratchHorn on Jul 17, 2009 2:15 AM CDT up reply actions

Naw

he’s never been harsh, always pretty classy in his writing. Truth hurts sometimes.

G G G E-flat_______ F F F D__________....

by t ball on Jul 17, 2009 7:23 AM CDT up reply actions

Nah, he has pretty much always

done more overrating than underrating of the players, even back in the dark days of Melvin when we had an extremely mediocre farm system, he’d pump up the weak prospects.

by DJCahill on Jul 17, 2009 7:32 AM CDT up reply actions

Come on Adam we all know...

…that Melvin was to Ranger GMs what Nolan is to Rangers’ saviors.

I have no objection to man walking on the moon.

by Chad Crudup on Jul 16, 2009 3:07 PM CDT reply actions

No joke, the Melvin lovefest in the media was the first thing that crossed my mind

If you read Galloway and the others to whom Melvin would always give a good quote, you’d think Melvin was greater than Branch Rickey, Lee McPhail, and Theo Epstein combined. In reality, Tom Grieve made Melvin’s job easy by leaving him a great foundation.

Tom Grieve = most underrated executive in Rangers history

"andruw jones hits 3 HRS at LA of Anaheim last nite after hitting zero at LA of LA as Dodger in all of '08. thats nuts." SI_JonHeyman

by WestTxAg06 on Jul 16, 2009 8:37 PM CDT up reply actions

FYI

MLB Network is currently playing the 1995 All Star game that was played in Arlington

"I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it." - Mitch Hedberg

by rentz on Jul 16, 2009 3:08 PM CDT reply actions

It was on last weekend too...

…it doesn’t feel like it was that long ago that I was at the homerun derby at RBiA (held during the DAY, what hellishly hot beating that was) but when I watched that game I was shocked at different the game presentation was. The score and ball/strike/out and men on base graphics were nowhere to be seen.

I have no objection to man walking on the moon.

by Chad Crudup on Jul 16, 2009 3:31 PM CDT up reply actions