60 Seasons, 60 Orioles - 1957: Connie Johnson

“Connie was a good pitcher in the major leagues. He was a great pitcher in the Negro Leagues. No comparison. He threw hard for the Monarchs. Hard. He had good control. Could have won 20 games in the big leagues. Oh yeah. Could have won 20 games every year. That's Connie Johnson.”     - Buck O'Neill

Clifford "Connie" Johnson made his professional debut at 17 years old for the Toledo/Indianapolis Crawfords of the Negro Leagues. The Crawfords disbanded the next season, so he signed with the Kansas City Monarchs, and became the #3 starting pitcher in the rotation behind future Hall of Famers Satchel Paige and Hilton Smith. He was a member of the club through the 1950 season (minus 1943-1945 due to serving in the military during World War II). Johnson made his MLB debut for the Chicago White Sox in 1951 at the age of 30, then was traded to the Orioles early in the 1956 season.

At the age of 34, Johnson had his best season in 1957 for the O's, going 14-11 with a 3.20 ERA (9th in the AL). He was essentially the first ace starter for the O's, pitching 14 complete games and recording 3 shutouts. He also had a league-leading 2.76 FIP, and was 3rd in the AL that season with 177K's, and had an AL second best 6.58 K's/9 IP. The Orioles finished 76-76 that season (the first non-losing record by the Baltimore Orioles, and best franchise record since the 1945 St. Louis Browns went 81-70). Connie Johnson was a major reason for the O's success that year, because every game he pitched, the O's had a good chance of winning. Decades later, when reflecting back on Connie Johnson's performance that season, Brooks Robinson said: "He looked about 50, but he threw so easy. He was just smart. He didn't have his great stuff by then, but he still threw plenty hard. I wish I'd seen him when he was young."

An oddity from that season was that Johnson had a blown save in a game that would end in a 4-4 tie, on 5/18/1957. Evidently a pre-arranged curfew of 10:20pm (Retrosheet Box score; scroll all the way down for info) was set so the White Sox could catch a train out of town after the game. Fortunately the O's hit a game-tying homer in the bottom of the 9th right before curfew. Even stranger, the O's had another tie the following day! That game was called for a more common reason - rain. Johnson would only play one more season in MLB, but the O's were lucky to have him when they did, because he was on of the early building blocks towards establishing a relevant baseball team in Baltimore.

Additional Links:
http://www.pitchblackbaseball.com/nlotmedconniejohnson.html
http://coe.k-state.edu/annex/nlbemuseum/history/players/johnsoncl.html
http://www.thedeadballera.com/Obits/Negro%20Leaguers/Johnson.Connie.Obit.html