Robert Lee Johnson, nicknamed “Indian Bob”, was born November 26, 1905 in Pryor, Oklahoma.
An A’s regular for a decade, Johnson had speed and power. He hit .307 with a career-high 34 Home Runs his second year and batted a peak .338 in 1939. Usually playing on inferior teams, he batted .300 five times and had eight seasons with 100 runs batted in. Many modern baseball fans are unfamiliar with Johnson, but he posted excellent totals in 13 years before quietly retiring.
Welcome to Baseball History Podcast, featuring baseball biographies. I’m your announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 11 of the 2011 baseball season.
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 3 week of March.
March 20
1943 Longtime favorite A’s outfielder, Bob Johnson is traded to the Senators for Bob Estalella and Jimmy Pofahl.
Robert Lee Johnson, nicknamed “Indian Bob”, was born November 26, 1905 in Pryor, Oklahoma.
An A’s regular for a decade, Johnson had speed and power. He hit .307 with a career-high 34 Home Runs his second year and batted a peak .338 in 1939. Usually playing on inferior teams, he batted .300 five times and had eight seasons with 100 runs batted in. Many modern baseball fans are unfamiliar with Johnson, but he posted excellent totals in 13 years before quietly retiring.
Johnson grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and thereafter made the city his home. His nickname was derived from his lineage, which was one-quarter Cherokee.
He left home in 1922 at age 15 and began his baseball career with the Los Angeles Fire Department team. Johnson was soon playing semi-professional ball. When his brother, Roy Johnson, became a professional, he felt buoyed. He said, “When Roy became a regular with San Francisco in 1927 I knew I could make the grade in fast company. I had played ball with Roy and felt I was as good as he was.”
Due to the abundance of quality outfielders in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he didn’t reach the major leagues until he was 27. He joined the Athletics in 1933, replacing Al Simmons, who had been traded to the Chicago White Sox.
Philadelphia had won three straight pennants from 1929 through 1931, but after a second-place finish in 1932 owner-manager Connie Mack began gradually dealing away most of his star players in order to keep the club afloat financially during the Great Depression.
As a rookie Johnson hit .290 with 20 home runs, 103 runs and 93 Runs Batted In, and was second in the American League with 44 doubles. But the team ended the season in third place; their 79-72 record was their last winning season until 1947, and they would occupy last place in six of Johnson’s 10 seasons, along with two seventh-place finishes. Catcher Mickey Cochrane and pitcher Lefty Grove were traded in December 1933, speeding the team’s decline.
Johnson took full advantage of playing in Shibe Park, which had long been a decidedly friendly environment for right-handed hitters such as Simmons and Jimmie Foxx. In 1934 Johnson improved his average to .307, including a 26-game hitting streak, and added a career-high 34 home runs along with 111 runs and 92 Runs Batted In. On June 16 he tied an American League record by going 6-for-6 with two home runs and a double.
In 1935 he made his first All-Star team, had 103 runs and 109 Runs Batted In, and finished fourth in the American League in home runs for the third straight year. Foxx andDoc Cramer were traded in late 1935, and over the next several years Johnson provided solid and consistent offensive production as the A’s remained mired at the bottom of the league.
He was among the league’s top 10 home run hitters in every season through 1941, joining Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mel Ott and Foxx as the fifth player to have nine straight 20-home run seasons. He also drove in over 100 runs in each year through 1941, scoring over 110 in 1938 and 1939; he was again an All-Star each year from 1938 through 1940.
He set an American League record by driving in six runs in the first inning with a grand slam and a double off White Sox pitcher Monty Stratton on August 29, 1937; then, in an 8–3 victory over the St. Louis Browns on June 12, 1938, he drove in all the runs with three home runs and a single. That year, playing primarily in center field, he again led the American League with 21 assists.
After hitting .306 and .313 in 1937 and 1938, Johnson posted a career-high mark of .338 in 1939 – third in the American League. He was also third in the American League with 114 Runs Batted In.
In 1942, his last season with the Athletics, he made his fifth All-Star team and broke Foxx’s team record of 975 career runs; his final total of 997 remained the club record until Rickey Henderson broke it in 1993.
In March 1943, after complaining that he was underappreciated, Johnson was traded at his request to the Washington Senators. He thrived in his first pennant race in years as Washington finished in second place, the second and last time he would be on a winning team.
His veteran leadership was invaluable to the team despite posting career lows in nearly every offensive category. The decline in his offensive statistics is partially attributable to moving from hitter-friendly Shibe Park to cavernous Griffith Stadium. However, he didn’t even lead his own team in any category.
At the end of the 1943 season, the Boston Red Sox purchased his contract, a deal Washington owner Clark Griffith later described as his worst ever. At 38, Johnson had an excellent 1944 season for the Sox, collecting 106 Runs Batted In and 106 runs (both second in the league). He hit for the cycle on July 6 and came in third in the batting race with a .324 average.
He was named to the All-Star team in both 1944 and 1945, although the 1945 All-Star game was not played due to World War II travel restrictions. With numerous players returning to the major leagues from military service, he retired at the end of the 1945 season after hitting .280 with 12 Home Runs and 74 Runs Batted In.
Johnson compiled a .296 career batting average with 396 doubles, 95 triples and 96 stolen bases.
Johnson is one of three players in Major League Baseball history to drive home all of his club’s runs in a single game with a minimum eight runs. On June 12, 1938 when the Athletics beat the St. Louis Browns 8-3, as Johnson batted in all the runs with three home runs (one a grand slam) and a single.
After leaving the major leagues, he spent five more seasons in the minor leagues managing and playing for the Tacoma Tigers in the Western International League.
Bob Carroll commented on Bob Johnson in his 1985 article for the National Pastime titled, “For the Hall of Fame: Twelve Good Men”. Carroll wrote, “Consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds but it can also make certain ballplayers nigh unto invisible. Indian Bob Johnson never had one of those super seasons that make everyone sit up and whistle. While phenoms came, collected their MVP trophies, and faded, he just kept plodding along hitting .300, with a couple dozen homers and a hundred ribbies year after year…like a guy punching a time clock.”
Bob Johnson died on July 6, 1982 in Tacoma, WA at age 76.
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Well, that’s it for today’s Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
