Johnson Still Enjoys Plenty Of Support

Seattle Mariners fans want to believe that Randy Johnson is being sincere. Otherwise, they might be inclined to start calling The Big Unit by a new nickname: The Big Creep.

But last Tuesday at a motivational seminar, Johnson drew huge cheers from the packed house of 15,000 in the Key Arena when he said he wants to remain with the Mariners.

“I really and truly appreciate you,” he said to the fans. “Keep coming out, and I’m hoping to be the Opening Day starter - and maybe we can win another championship.”

Earlier in his speech, Johnson was interrupted by applause when he said: “Wherever I go, or if I’m still here this year - which I’m hoping I’ll be …”

Johnson’s agent, Barry Meister, continued to maintain that the pitcher’s position hasn’t changed. If the Mariners don’t want to lay out Maddux-Martinez money and sign the 34-year-old lefty to a contract extension, then he’d prefer to do his pitching elsewhere.

“Everyone knows the situation,” Meister told reporters. “Randy would prefer, if the Mariners don’t want to sign him to an extension and don’t want to keep him beyond this year, that he move on. But he’s not going to disappoint people. We’re not going to turn this into some kind of ugly display.”

Golden Globes redux

Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez, in a scene that could have been lifted straight from the Golden Globes, provided the most electrifying moment of Boston’s baseball writers’ dinner last week. He gave his Cy Young Award back to Juan Marichal, the Hall of Famer who had presented it to him.

“You are my daddy,” Martinez said as he embraced Marichal, who now serves as minister of sport in Dominican Republic, the island country in which they both rank as national heroes.

Marichal, visibly moved as a crowd of about 1,000 in the Sheraton Hotel ballroom rose in applause, returned to the dais. In his 16 years in the big leagues, Marichal won 243 games, a record for a Latin-born pitcher, and won 20 or more games six times, but had never won the Cy Young Award.

“Pedro, I know how you feel,” said Marichal, who pitched half a season for the Red Sox in 1974. “I know how I feel. But this (trophy) belongs to you. You deserve it.”

Earlier this week, actor Ving Rhames gave the Golden Globe award he won for playing Don King in a HBO movie to actor Jack Lemmon.

Fernando Cuza, who is one of Martinez’s agents, said the pitcher was serious about his gesture. “He wants Juan to keep the award,” Cuza said.

The men later agreed they would bring home the award to the Dominican Republic together. No word on whose mantel it will ultimately hang over.

Keeping it going

Showing a stability hardly characteristic of expansion teams, the Rockies this winter have given contract extensions to manager Don Baylor (through ‘99) and GM Bob Gebhard (2000). The pair has been together since the expansion team came into existence. Only three combinations of GM-manager have been together longer than the Colorado pair: John Schuerholz and Bobby Cox in Atlanta, John Hart and Mike Hargrove in Cleveland, and Sal Bando and Phil Garner in Milwaukee.

No sure thing

Any doubts that Rupert Murdoch’s purchase of the Dodgers would be something less than a slam dunk were erased last week by a published interview with Padres owner John Moores, who said he has big worries about Mr. Fox and his bottomless pockets coming into the game.

“We’re very concerned about having a monster to the north that does not care about running the ball club in a responsible manner,” Moores said in the interview. “At the end of the day, we’re not going to sign off on it if it is going to make our situation here intolerable… . It may not be in our best financial interest to have the Fox deal go through.”