How Johnson, Pedro could have starred in same rotation

So it was well known that Langston was a trade candidate, with Seattle yet to enjoy a .500 season. At multiple points, it appeared the Mets would land Langston, only for Argyros to veto the deal, which supposedly would also have sent Jay Buhner to New York, and Howard Johnson, Sid Fernandez and Kevin Tapani to Seattle.

“We were about as close as you can come to making the deal on a number of occasions,” Mets vice president Joe McIlvaine said.

According to Gammons’ reporting, Argyros later killed a three-way trade that would have included Langston going to Toronto, George Bell to Atlanta and Al Leiter to Seattle. There was talk of other trade discussions as well, involving the Dodgers, Red Sox and Royals.

But in the end, it came down to New York (with a revised offer) and Montreal. The Mariners picked the latter, and after Langston turned down a last-ditch extension bid, Johnson was headed for the Pacific Northwest.

This Day in Sports History: Randy Johnson and the bird pitch

Once again jumping ahead to the relevant content:

Johnson was right in the middle of all that in 2001, which was a big year for him. He ended the season with league-leading stats, his fourth of five career Cy Youngs, and he’d also get his only World Series ring (and World Series MVP award) while leading the still-newborn Diamondbacks franchise to its first (and still only) championship.

It all started with a bird. A bird that sacrificed its life so that Johnson’s legacy could reach mythic proportions.

The event?
History’s deadliest no-pitch.

The season hadn’t even started yet. The Diamondbacks were playing the San Francisco Giants in a spring training game, just as meaningless as the last one. The sun was bright, the grass was green, and one bird had no idea that it was about to flap its wings for the very last time.

Some day, the birds will get their revenge…..