Power Couple

Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson are opposites in every way but one: their ability to dominate a game

By Stephen Cannella

Issue date: November 7, 2001

Once every five days visitors to the Diamondbacks' clubhouse can tell who's scheduled to pitch without looking at he lineup card. There's something missing from the room, one of those background noises that, like the whir of an air conditioner or elevator music, is most noticeable when it's not there. It is the sound of Curt Schilling's voice, which normally permeates the room.

Instead of chatting up teammates and reporters, the loquacious Schilling buries himself in scouting reports and the video clips of opposing hitters that he has meticulously catalogued on CD-ROMs. He studies the tattered spiral notebook in which he jots down observations while on the bench between innings. He sharpens the intense focus and fury it will take to hurl 96-mph heat for three hours. "Usually, Curt never shuts up," says leftfielder Luis Gonzalez. "But on the days he pitches, we just stay out of his way."

"I know I'm not the friendliest guy on the days I pitch," says Schilling. "There's not a whole lot anyone can say to me that will help me win that day, so I like to keep to myself."

In other words, once every five days Schilling has more in common with his coace in the Arizona rotation than just the ability to blow hitters away. Unlike Schilling, Randy Johnson keeps a low profile every day. Like Schilling, however, he spends the hours before his starts in stony, silent solitude. He can be seen sitting on the stool in front of his cubicle, back turned to the rest of the clubhouse, staring into his locker. He visualizes the 97-mph fastballs and vicious sliders that he'll fling, all the while cementing the death mask that hitters will see when he peers in from the mound. Though Johnson also digests scouting reports and intelligence on opposing hitters, his pregame routine is more emotional than cerebral.

"Curt probably takes too much out to the mound with him," the Big Unit says. "He's a little too anal, whereas I rely more on my experience. You can have all the information you want, but it still comes down to execution."

No wonder Gonzalez refers to Schilling and Johnson as "the odd couple." One is lefthanded, one is righthanded. One is 6'10" and a rail-thin 235 pounds. The other packs the same weight onto a burly 6'5" frame and looks like a linebacker. Says first baseman Mark Grace, "Randy is a little more introverted than Curt, but then everybody is a little more introverted than Curt."

Nevertheless, as they developed into one of the most dominant pitching tandems in the game's history, Johnson and Schilling have built a close friendship. They're Abbott and Costello with fastballs, Penn and Teller in double knits. "Our philosophies and our approaches are so drastically different yet exactly the same in a lot of ways," Schilling says. "I am an extrovert. He is an introvert. I think it's almost like when you meet the perfect woman: Opposites attract."

Before they teamed up in the Arizona desert midway through the 2000 season, when Schilling was traded to the Diamondbacks from the Philadelphia Phillies, the two fireballers were individually fearsome. From 1988 through '99 Johnson had a .645 winning percentage and two 300-strikeout seasons, while Schilling had four 15-win campaigns and two 300-whiff seasons. But the swath they cut during the 2001 regular season and playoffs was a testament to what can happen when two of this generation's premier power pitchers have the opportunity to compare notes and trade secrets every day. Schilling cracked the 20-win barrier for the first time in his career, tying Matt Morris of the St. Louis Cardinals for the major league lead in victories (22). Johnson won 21 games, led the National League with a 2.49 ERA and amassed the third-highest season strikeout total in history (372), a mere 11 whiffs off the record set by Nolan Ryan in 1973. His average of 13.4 strikeouts per nine innings was the highest in history.

Schilling and Johnson combined to fan 665 hitters, obliterating the record for the most K's by teammates (624, set by Ryan and Bill Singer of the California Angels in '73), and became the first teammates to finish one-two in their league in strikeouts since Dizzy Trout and Hal Newhouser of the '44 Detroit Tigers. During the regular season the Diamondbacks were 51-18 when Schilling or Johnson started and a middling 41-52 in games started by others. That trend continued in the postseason: Arizona went 9-2 in the 11 games started by Schilling and Johnson, 2-4 in the other games. "I always knew they were great pitchers, but I never realized how great until I saw them every five days," says Grace, who faced both in his days with the Chicago Cubs before signing with the Diamondbacks as a free agent last winter. "Combined they might have thrown five bad games all year."

Schilling set the stage for the 2001 season early in spring training when he presciently declared to Johnson, "Either you're going to win the Cy Young Award again this year or I'm going to take it from you." Made half in jest, the challenge was nonetheless a gauntlet laid down in front of Johnson. It was also Schilling's way of pumping himself up after a disappointing 2000 season. When the D-Backs acquired him from the Phillies on July 26, they were 56-44 and in first place in the National League West, one game ahead of the San Francisco Giants. Adding the righthander with a reputation for being a stout big-game pitcher was supposed to be the hammer that would clinch the club's second straight division title.

Schilling, however, was still recovering from off-season shoulder surgery and wasn't as sharp as expected. He went 5-6 in 13 starts for the Diamondbacks, who collapsed and finished in third place, 12 games behind the Giants. When he showed up in spring training this year, Schilling was determined not to let his team down again. He stepped up his already intense preparedness, partly because he was determined to match the competitive fire that has always burned in Johnson. "I don't question for a second that he's a huge factor in the consistency I've had this year," says Schilling. "There's an intensity and a focus that I believe I've always had, and until I met him I believed that no one had more than I did. I was sorely mistaken after watching him pitch a few times. I realized there's another level."

The two pitchers rubbed off on each other in other ways. Johnson began fooling around with a split-fingered fastball, Schilling's bread-and-butter pitch, and by his start in Game 2 of this year's World Series he was effectively mixing it in with his fastball and slider seven or eight times a game. If Johnson quietly helped Schilling ratchet up his intensity on the mound, Schilling returned the favor by easing Johnson's burden as the staff ace. For the first time in his career the Unit had a running mate who was equally capable of shutting down the best-hitting lineups and halting losing streaks. Johnson losses, rare as they might be, were no longer titanic events. Schilling was 15-1 after Arizona losses this season, and though Johnson started on Opening Day, it was clear by October that Schilling was 1 and Johnson was 1A in the rotation.

Johnson acknowledges that Schilling's presence made this season more fun for him than any other in his career, and not just because the two hung out off the field and played golf together on every road trip. (Their standing bet: Loser buys the souvenir shirts from the pro shop.) "You usually know when Randy loses because Curt will be in here wearing that shirt," says Gonzalez. "Randy doesn't like to brag or boast when he wins."

But he's only too happy to salute Schilling. "I've got someone now who takes some of that responsibility off me," Johnson said before his start in Game 2 of the Division Series, a game in which he pitched well (eight innings, three runs) but which he still lost 4-1 to the Cardinals. "I feel as if the responsibility of carrying the team in the postseason has been evenly divided."

It was. Schilling won two games in the Division Series. Johnson won twice and Schilling once in the National League Championship Series. They combined to win all four World Series games. Schilling secured his reputation as a money pitcher by becoming the third hurler in history to throw three straight complete games in one postseason. (Luis Tiant of the 1975 Red Sox and Orel Hershiser of the '88 Dodgers were the others.) "The bigger the game, the better," Schilling said. "I'm an adrenaline junkie. I feed off big crowds and noise."

Johnson, whose loss to the Cardinals in the Division Series was his major league record seventh straight in the postseason, finally carved out his own identity as a reliable big-game starter. After his dominating three-hit, 11-K shutout against the Braves in Game 1 of the NLCS, Johnson said he felt as if he had gotten "King Kong" off his back by finally ending his playoff losing streak. The Big Unit then clinched the pennant with a tense 3-2 victory in Game 5, and he blew away the Yankees in Game 2 of the World Series with another three-hit shutout.

If Johnson grew more dominant as the postseason progressed, he also became more relaxed. Teammates were shocked to see him practicing his putting in the clubhouse before his first start against Atlanta, and he spent part of the afternoon before his first career World Series start discussing his NFL pool picks with catcher Damian Miller. "He's still not talkative," Schilling said after that game, "but he's not the mummy he was when I first got here."

Indeed, throughout the postseason Johnson and Schilling could be seen chatting it up in the dugout between innings, discussing hitters and pitches, looking like Lennon and McCartney exchanging songwriting tips at the piano. They had much to discuss: By combining for nine wins and 103 strikeouts they placed themselves alongside Koufax and Drysdale as one of the most dominant October duos ever. "I told him the hard part's going to be showing up in spring training next year having to do it all over again," says Schilling. "Next year, everybody's going to expect it."

Issue date: November 7, 2001