The life-sized Randy Johnson growth charts that were once prized Kingdome giveaways have been peeled off closet doors, the kids who once measured themselves beside his image having long ago topped out. Just not at 6-foot-10.

One old poster would be the perfect tchotchke for the Baseball Hall of Fame – the wrinkles and torn edges and notches in ink every half inch or so proving a real player-to-fan connection that can’t be captured in soulless bronze.

But that’s not how they do things in Cooperstown.

Sometimes it’s impossible to explain just how things are done there. For instance, two years ago the army of writers asked to cast ballots couldn’t find a single Hall-worthy soul. Then the stewards tweaked the voting process to make election even harder – limiting voters to 10 picks and whacking five years off a player’s eligibility window. And now, voila, the Class of 2015 is the biggest in 60 years.

Johnson, the Big Unit of the 1990s Seattle Mariners and Cy Young hoarder for Arizona after that, was the big vote-getter Tuesday in a quartet filled out by fellow pitchers Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz and Houston second baseman Craig Biggio. Catcher Mike Piazza was this year’s near-miss victim of electoral algebra. And alphabet tainting again did in the likes of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens (PEDs) and the M’s Edgar Martinez (DH).

Edgar’s consolation: an immediate endorsement from a new lodge member.

“The best pure hitter I ever saw play or faced,” Johnson said. “At some point soon, I hope he’ll have the same opportunity.”

Can’t hurt to hope. But having connected with only 27 percent of the voters, Edgar’s only real hope is a new electorate.

Why the anti-DH logic (they’re so one-dimensional, you see) somehow doesn’t manifest itself in the voting for pitchers is yet another inexplicable facet to Hall madness. But even that sort of nonsense was never going to derail Johnson – he of the 303 wins, 4,875 strikeouts and five Cys.

In fact, it almost makes you forget that the M’s traded him away before he’d won half those games.

When do you suppose you’ll see that again – a Hall of Famer dealt away in his prime?

Oh, right. Next year – when Ken Griffey Jr. goes in on the first ballot.

Actually, it’s not that rare, as a scroll down the Hall roster will tell you. But it does seem like a particularly Mariners thing to do since it happened with, you know, their two best players.

And this is about the time the M’s fan notices that the wine with which he’s toasting the Big Unit’s election – and Junior’s to come – is Chateau le Liquid-Plumr.

The sideshow of the Hall of Fame election, of course, is the debate what hat logo will be visible on the new inductee’s plaque. Why it’s so important baffles, except that we have a hell of a time not keeping score of anything and everything.

Johnson played longer in Seattle than anywhere else, and he paid tribute to it Tuesday as his “apprenticeship. That’s where I learned how to pitch and go out there every fifth day – good, bad or indifferent.”

But he also noted later, “The time I played (in Arizona) from ’99 to 2004 was career-changing.”

And in Seattle, pretty near franchise-branding.

The door had not quite slammed shut on the M’s mid-’90s opportunity for glory until Johnson felt he was owed a megadeal after a 20-4 season in 1997 and the franchise balked at spending on a 35-year-old with a 55-year-old back. He then went into a predictable funk – some called it tanking – until being sent to Houston at the trade deadline, where he responded with “the best two months of my career.”

The M’s got pretty good value for him – Freddy Garcia, Carlos Guillen, John Halama. Their misgivings about his long-term durability weren’t unreasonable, though he’d just given them 200-plus innings.

They were just wrong.

Arizona, an expansion team, rewarded Johnson with free-agent riches and in a year went from 97 losses to 100 wins – and won a World Series in their fourth season. This may stand as the single most galling development in M’s Series-less 38-year history.

“When fans come up they don’t want to talk about the Cy Youngs, they talk about the World Series,” Johnson said. “Oh, they also talk about the dead pigeon, too.”

Another highlight the M’s missed.

Johnson’s departure – and Griffey’s the next year – didn’t put the franchise into a death spiral. After all, the 116-win magic of 2001 was still to come. But even that could not be built upon, and was instead overwhelmed by misjudgment, lack of vision and front office toxicity evident in their personnel dealings of the late ’90s. Only now are the M’s showing signs of competitive health.

But on Tuesday, they could at least tip a cap to Randy Johnson’s election to the Hall of Fame. Whether it bore their logo or not.