Dan Johnson’s Looking For Work, And Maybe Just A Bit More Luck

Sometimes for the best stories, you have to talk to a man’s wife.

Dan Johnson hit the most dramatic home run in 2011, and his wife Holly almost missed it.

Via the Star Tribune’s Joe Christensen:

In Minnesota, it was 9:37 p.m. when Rays manager Joe Maddon sent Johnson to the plate, asking him to perform a baseball miracle. Holly watched in disbelief.

“I’m kind of getting ready to doze off,” she said. “All of a sudden, I hear the announcer say ‘Dan Johnson,’ and I was like, ‘What?’ So I look at the screen, and here comes Dan -- two outs, bottom of the ninth.”

She knew her husband had a flair for the dramatic, but his last major-league hit had come in April. She and the boys had spent most of the season with him in Durham, N.C., while he struggled to hit Class AAA pitching with an injured left wrist.

Now, Maddon had summoned Johnson to pinch-hit, resting the entire season on his shoulders.

As her red-bearded husband emerged from the dugout and took his practice swings, Holly had one prevailing thought: “Are they really going to do this to him?”

Oh, she of little faith!

Of course, it wasn’t what they did to him; it was what he did to the Yankees, and especially the Red Sox.

Of course, that wasn’t Dan Johnson’s first big hit for the Rays. He already held claim to the biggest home run in franchise history, which vaulted the club to first place for basically the first time ever. He hit some big homers in 2010, too; in one game, he homered to beat the Red Sox, and in another he homered twice to beat the Yankees.

But again, you already know all that. You also know that aside from those brief moments of glory, Johnson’s never really established himself as a good major-league player. In three seasons with the A’s, 2005-2007, Johnson posted mediocre numbers for a first baseman, and since then he’s got a .167 batting average in the majors while spending the great majority of his time in Japan or the International League.

Just another Quadruple-A hitter, right?

Yes, probably. But as is so often the case when a young hitter with impressive credentials doesn’t develop as expected, there are extenuating circumstances in Johnson’s case. In 2006, Johnson’s second season in the majors, he sprayed sunscreen in his eye during spring training and suffered from double vision all summer. The next season, his vision was cleared up but a baserunner clipped him and he suffered a torn labrum. And last spring, he was the Rays’ Opening Day first baseman but caught a pitch on the wrist a couple of weeks later, which killed his swing for most of the season.

Then, the huge home run to help beat the Yankees and get the Rays into the playoffs.

He didn’t make the postseason roster, and in early November the Rays waived him. And now, 32, Dan Johnson is looking for work.

I don’t know if he deserves more than a minor-league contract. But this little bit of human interest is worthwhile, because it reminds us that while the numbers are really all that really last, there are often stories behind them. And sometime they matter quite a lot.