The ultimate team players

By Tom Verducci, Sports Illustrated

Some of the longest, deepest conversations I have had about pitching and baseball have been with Randy Johnson. He is polite and thoughtful. Of course, that does not quite square with The Big Unit's reputation as one of the fiercest, most intimidating presences in the game, a guy known to make teammates cower, let alone opponents. Even his wife, Lisa, has been known to avoid conversation with Johnson on days when he is pitching. That is why Johnson may be the best reason not to confuse the persona of a player with who he is as a man. This is something Curt Schilling learned quickly after being traded to Arizona in July 2000.

"You get certain images of people from afar, like with Randy, and then you find out they're totally different," Schilling said. "With Randy, I wanted to find out more about him because to get to a certain level of achievement you have to do things differently than other people, and I was curious to know what he did. And the more I was around him, the more I realized he's a complex guy in some ways but he has a heart of gold. He really does."

Schilling, of course, reveals himself eagerly, a little too much so in some peoples' opinion. An Arizona Republic columnist called him "a con man" in print -- the day of Game 7 of the World Series. This much, in Schilling's own words, is beyond reproach: "Randy and I may seem different on the outside, but inside I think we are a lot alike."

Inside, Schilling and Johnson hold dear a deep respect for the game and its history. Each has a insatiable yearning to better himself. Each burns to win. They are Sports Illustrated's Sportsmen of the Year because they pushed their team to a world championship and they pushed each other to the kind of gallant pitching reminiscent of the dead-ball era, or at least of a time when pitch counts, four days of rest between starts, 200-inning "workhorse" thresholds, "quality" starts and the rest of the accoutrements of the modern-day pampered starter didn't exist.

Schilling started three times in the World Series, including twice on short rest after having never done it in his career (except once this year after a two-inning cameo caused by a power failure in San Diego). Johnson pitched three times in the Series as well, including a relief appearance the day after he had started -- nobody had done that in the Fall Classic since Vic Raschi in 1952. Johnson won both those games, the first pitcher to win as a starter and reliever on back-to-back days in the World Series.

Factor in their ages -- Schilling turned 35 in November and Johnson turned 38 in September (Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale were out of baseball at those ages) -- as well as their workload -- they combined for 596 innings and 768 strikeouts in 2001 -- and you have to marvel about how much they gave their team.

Talking to Johnson one November night in the office of his Paradise Valley, Ariz., home, I was struck by how quickly he had moved on from the World Series. He could not admit to ever really allowing himself the pleasure of basking in the success. Oh, there was a moment, he said, while vacationing in Mexico when he had to tell himself, "We won the World Series. We won the World Series."

He explained, "It had happened in such a blur . . . I remember thinking in the dugout, from Day One of spring training, now it all comes down to this. We had made it to the World Series, then we made it to the seventh game and now we made it to the ninth inning. And now I was just hoping and praying something good would happen. And when Mariano Rivera threw the ball away on the bunt, I thought, now we've got something going. And before you knew it, we were out there dog-piling on each other.''

Otherwise, Johnson had his mind fixed more on his offseason program than the World Series. "I have to work harder," he said, "because I'm getting older."

While we sat and talked, the telephone rang. Lisa picked it up in another room and, a few minutes later, entered the office to tell Randy that his doctor had called. Johnson's back had stiffened during the playoffs. He pitched the NLCS and the World Series with a wrap around it. It still felt a little tight in Mexico, so he went in for an MRI. The doctor told him the MRI turned out fine.

Schilling lives in a house two blocks from Johnson. First baseman Mark Grace lives across the street. Schilling, too, said the impact of what he and the Diamondbacks had done this season had not settled over him. For one, he missed the World Series parade because he had a cruise booked that week -- a cruise on which he was ill with strep throat.

Unlike Johnson, Schilling had been to the World Series before, in 1993 with Philadelphia. But Schilling had been something of an outcast on that Dykstra-Daulton-Hollins Gashouse Gang kind of team. "They were so cruel to Curt," his wife, Shonda said. "They'd get on him all the time."

The Diamondbacks, stocked with veterans, take a more professional approach that better suits Schilling. He is exhaustive, even "anal" as Johnson describes it, in his game preparation. In addition to keeping statistical analysis on CDs, Schilling tracks the schedules of umpires so he knows who will be behind the plate for his starts. He also consults with a sports psychologist, George Nigro of Los Angeles.

"I started using him at the end of last year," Schilling said. "I was at a point where mentally I was just struggling so much. I ran into him at Dodger Stadium. He basically pushed himself on me. And things clicked.

"The night before every start this year we'd do a session over the telephone, The first time he told me, 'If you fall asleep, I'll just keep talking and keep going with the session.' I was like, 'Yeah, right, whatever.' Well, I did fall asleep. There were times I'd wake up and the phone would be hanging off on the floor or something."

Their personalities and methods might differ, but Johnson and Schilling showed this year they are ultimate team players. At what should be an advanced age for pitchers, they gave of themselves unselfishly.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci covers the baseball beat for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com.