Art Johnson
Ballplayers Wounded in Combat
| Date and Place of Birth: | July 16, 1916 Winchester, MA |
| Date and Place of Death: | April 27, 2008 Holden, MA |
| Baseball Experience: | Major League |
| Position: | Pitcher |
| Rank: | Yeoman |
| Military Unit: | US Navy |
| Area Served: | Pacific Theater of Operations |
Arthur H. “Art” Johnson was born on July 16, 1916, in Winchester,
Massachusetts. He attended Winchester High School where he and his
future wife, Loretta Gaffney, were named “most athletic” in the class of
1938. A left-handed pitcher, he pitched batting practice for the Boston
Braves while still a junior in high school. He struck out 18 batters for
Winchester on April 26, 1938, while shutting out Lexington High School,
7 to 0.
Johnson actually signed with the Braves during his junior year but never
told anyone so he could pitch for his school team one more season
without being declared ineligible.
In June 1938, the day after graduation, Johnson was sent by the Braves
to the Erie Sailors of the Class C Middle-Atlantic League where he had a
2-6 record with a 5.03 ERA. He pitched for the Evansville Bees of the
Class B Three-I League and the Hartford Bees of the Class A Eastern
League in 1939. He was with Boston for spring training at Bradenton,
Florida, in 1940, and really made a name for himself with Hartford that
year when he was 17-11 with an earned run average of 3.19.
His fine year with Hartford prompted a late-season call-up to the Braves
in September 1940, and he made his major league debut, aged 21, against
the New York Giants on September 22, at the old Polo Grounds. Johnson
came in in relief and the first batter he faced was Johnny Rucker, who
grounded back to him.
"I'd always dreamed of playing in the major leagues. Walking into the
locker room for the first time gave me chills," Johnson told Jim Keogh
of the Holden Landmark in 1997. "Back then we traveled by train, which
made the players closer. We ate together, played cards together. It was
a far cry from the old broken-down buses in the minors."
Johnson was back with Boston for spring training in 1941. When manager
Casey Stengel was making roster cuts he had to chose between Johnson and
veteran Wes Ferrell. Stengel chose the rookie, sending the notoriously
hot-tempered Ferrell on a rampage through the locker room.
Johnson responded to Stengel's decision by making 43 appearances, 18 as
a starter, and had a 7-15 record for the seventh-placed club. His 3.53
ERA shows how well he pitched that year and many of his 15 losses were
one and two-run games in which the futile-hitting Braves were unable to
support their pitcher. Highlights of the season included a 4-2 win over
the Cardinals on June 5, that knocked them out of first place, and a
3-1, seven-hit performance over the New York Giants on August 13. He was
also responsible for beaning Terry Moore of the Cardinals on August 20,
causing a cerebral concussion that saw the outfielder miss nearly a
month of the season.
Johnson seemed to have a promising career ahead of him but war clouds
were looming and he remembers being at Loretta’s house when he heard
that Pearl Harbor was bombed. His first words were, "Where is Pearl
Harbor?" Soon he would be seeing it for himself, but it was not to be
the war that brought an end to his playing career. “I had hurt my arm in
1942 in spring training,” he recalled. “I had pitched three innings
against Bob Feller and Casey [Stengel] asked if I wanted to go another
inning. In those days you didn’t say no. I threw out my rotator cuff in
the 4th inning, and the medical profession didn’t know how to fix it.”
Johnson made just four appearances that season. Stan Hack, the third
baseman for the Cubs, advised him he shouldn’t even try to pitch. “I can
tell it hurts every time you throw,” he told the young pitcher.
The one high point of 1942 for Art Johnson came outside of baseball. In
May, he married his high school sweetheart, Loretta.
On November 9, 1942, Johnson entered military service with the Navy. He
was at Newport, Rhode Island, for boot camp, then Washington, DC. He was
then assigned to Philadelphia to await the final construction of the
light aircraft carrier USS Langley (CVL-27). In late 1943, Johnson got
to see Pearl Harbor for himself aboard the Langley, and on to the
Marshall Islands in the Pacific. “I worked in the Captain’s office and
was a gunner’s mate,” he said.
Yeoman Johnson was at Saipan, Tinian, Eniwetok and went through a
typhoon (Typhoon Cobra, December 18, 1944) to get to Iwo Jima. “I never
experienced anything like it in my life,” he said. “It tilted the
carrier as far as it could go. It was a petrifying experience.”
When they reached Iwo Jima, the Langley’s planes were involved in the
attempted destruction of Japanese defenses on the island. “We were about
a mile off shore,” he recalls. “Our bombers spent six days bombing the
island, but it didn’t bother them [the Japanese] a bit because they were
deep in the caves. We didn’t know that. We found out later,
unfortunately, when our marines went ashore.”
Johnson was later wounded, when fragments from a Japanese kamikaze plane
that hit the deck of the Langley, tore into his knees (probably January
21, 1945).
He had little time for baseball during the war years. “The only baseball
I played,” he said, “was when we would get leave on Eniwetok and have
pickup games with guys like Bob Feller and Enos Slaughter. They were
just pick-up games for fun. I pitched against Bob Feller. Slaughter
played like it was a World Series. He’d be bleeding and so forth and
going full bore. Baseball was always serious to him.”
Johnson was discharged from service in October 1945. “I went to spring
training in 1946, but could not make it,” he recalled. “My arm was still
sore, and, of course, my knees were damaged by the kamikaze attack.
Billy Southworth was the manager, a really nice guy. I did get a
disabled military pension because of the injury.
"When people ask about my career record," Johnson said, "I tell them
that together Warren Spahn and I won over 370 games. Of course, Warren
won 363 of those."
Looking back on his baseball career, Johnson remembers Casey Stengel as
a great manager who really knew his baseball, was a good teacher and had
a good rapport with all his players. “He had all the time in the world
for the rookies,” he said.
After his baseball career, Johnson sold sporting goods for Wilson, then
went to work for an insurance company, going to college at night to
learn sales and accounting. In 1955, he moved to Holden, Massachusetts,
about 60 miles west of his former home, Winchester, originally on a
temporary transfer, but stayed there because he and Loretta had three
children and were impressed with the schools. He bought his own
insurance agency in 1960, which he sold in 1987.
In 1997, Johnson was among many former Braves invited to Fenway Park to
commemorate the Atlanta Braves' interleague series with the Red Sox, the
first time the Braves played in Boston since they defected to Milwaukee
in 1953. Johnson was in the Braves' dugout before the game and chatted
with manager Bobby Cox. During their conversation, Johnson asked Cox if
he could get Chipper Jones to autograph a ball for Johnson's grandson.
"He did better than that," said Johnson. "As the ballplayers ran off the
field, he handed each of them the ball, one by one, and had them sign
it. Greg Maddux, John Smoltz. Fred McGriff. All of them. Cox pointed
toward me and told them, 'Here, sign this ball, because without guys
like him, you wouldn't be here.'"
Art Johnson passed away on April 27, 2008, in Holden, Massachusetts. He
was 88 years old and is buried at St. Mary Cemetery in Holden.
Date Added December 24, 2017
Can you add more information to this biography and help make it the best online resource for this player? Contact us by email
Read Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice Through The Years - an online year-by-year account of military related deaths of ballplayers
Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice is associated with Baseball Almanac
Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice is proud to be sponsored by
