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Tell Alex
Johnson you're a longtime fan and receive one of three
replies:
"Uh-huh."
"And?"
"What do you want from
me?"
Johnson is bitter, caustic and slightly funny. Ask him what
he's up to, and expect a quick snap: "Putting a clutch
in a truck. That
O.K.?"
Fine, Alex. Fine. If nothing else, Johnson more than lives
up to the billing on his lone SI cover:
THE FALLEN ANGEL. At the time, Johnson, a slugging leftfielder for the
California Angels, was being ripped by teammates, coaches
and fans for about a zillion reasons—from poor attitude to
lazy fielding to flat-out lying. These days, as owner of
Johnson Trucking Service in Detroit, Johnson says, "I
can do whatever the hell I want."
When he was released by the Detroit Tigers in December
1976, Johnson, now 55, all but annulled his relationship
with the game and plunged into his truck-repair and leasing
business as if his rocky, 13-year major league career had
never happened. "I used
to think, F--- the game," he
says.
That bitterness
stemmed
from his second season with the Angels. In 1971, the year
after he had won the American League batting crown—his
.3290 average was .0004 better than that of the Boston Red
Sox' Carl Yastrzemski—Johnson was fined, benched five
times and suspended for 88
games for a lack of hustle and a lousy attitude. In a way,
he was the original Rodman (without neon), a brooding,
confounding sort who could go 4-for-4 one day and fail to
run out grounders the next. Managers were enticed by his
talent,
but not his
personality.
"There came a point when I was stereotyped wherever I
went," says Johnson, a divorced father of two.
"I remember showing up for the first day of spring training
with a new club, and the manager called me into his office.
He said, 'You've got no trouble with me, I've got none with
you. Understood?' That shows how people thought of
me."
So, at age 34, with a .288 career batting average, 1,331
hits and a scarred reputation, Johnson hung it up. The
ensuing 21 years have been enough to change him from Alex
Johnson, troublemaker, to Alex Johnson, truck guy, at least
in the minds of most
Detroiters. "Do I enjoy my life?" Johnson asks
rhetorically. "I enjoy not being on an airplane all
the time. I enjoy not having to face everything I did. I
just want to help people with their vehicles. It's a nice,
normal life—the thing I've always
wanted."
—by Jeff Pearlman
Cover photograph by Fred Kaplan
Issue date: March 9, 1998
Past Editions of Catching Up With...
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