Nine Years Off It, And It Still Worked

Walter Johnson had been retired nine years when Fredericksburg called.

He was 48, running a farm in Maryland, and had just been named to the first Hall of Fame class ever elected. The town wanted him to test a story nobody could prove: that a young George Washington once threw a silver dollar across the Rappahannock. A congressman from New York laid 20-to-1 odds it couldn't be done. Johnson wired back that he was practicing against his barn door, and that his arm was getting stronger while the door was getting weaker.

February 22, 1936. Twenty-seven degrees. Four thousand people standing in the snow on both banks with CBS carrying it live. The first throw fell in the water. The next two cleared the far side, and the official one sailed into the crowd, where a kid picked up the dollar and took it home.

The bet never got paid. The congressman argued the river used to be wider, and he may well have been right. But nobody stood in the cold that morning for the surveying.

They came because for twenty-one seasons that arm was the most dependable thing in the game. 110 shutouts, still the record. 3,509 strikeouts. A fastball hitters said they heard before they saw. Nine years off it, and it still worked.