Page 212 - 1975 BoSox

DARRELL DEAN JOHNSON worked in baseball as a catcher, a coach, a manager best known for
taking the 1975 Red Sox to Game Seven of the World Series, and as a scout. He was born in the small community of Horace, Nebraska, on August 25, 1928, but grew up on the West Coast, so much so that he was routinely described as a Californian.
After playing in the California state amateur tourney in 1949, Johnson was signed as an amateur free agent by St. Louis Browns scout Tony Robello. He was assigned to Redding (California) in the Class D Far West League and played in 88 games, batting .276 in 322 at-bats, with nine home runs and 58 RBIs.
Moving from Class D to Class C, Johnson played in 1950 for the Marshall (Texas) Browns in the East Texas League. Appearing in 131 games in the 136-game schedule, he had 13 home runs, 105 RBIs, and a .329 batting average. Johnson tied for the league lead with 36 doubles, and led the league’s catchers in elding average (.979). Marshall won the league playo s.
Moving further up the ladder, Johnson was jumped to Double-A, catching in the Texas League for the 1951 San Antonio Missions. He got into 49 games and hit .266 with three homers and 24 RBIs. He was re- membered by the folks in Marshall, and some 300 fans from there traveled to Shreveport on May 23, 1951, to present him with a savings bond and manager Salty Parker with a hat.1 Johnson was
accorded another honor when he was named to the South team for the July 12 Texas League all-star game, but he was unable to take part, because just a few hours before the team was announced, he had been sent down to Wichita Falls. It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle Double-A ball but that the Missions had won the championship the year before and not
only did the team want to make room for a returning member of that squad coming from Toronto, but Wichita Falls urgently needed a catcher. So Johnson made his way to the Class B Big State League, where he nished the season with the Wichita Falls Spudders, batting .309.
Johnson was not on the Browns’ 1952 spring roster, but he elected to participate in advanced spring train- ing. New manager Rogers Hornsby liked his work and kept him on the Opening Day roster. (At the time, teams often started the season with extended rosters and did not have to pare down to 25 men until 30 days after the season started.)
Darrell Johnson made his major-league debut on April 20, 1952, in the Browns’ sixth game of the season. He singled and scored in his one at-bat, against the Chicago White Sox’ Billy Pierce. ere was an odd aspect to the game. It was suspended after seven innings with the White Sox leading, 10-2. e game was nished on May 26.
When fellow rookie Clint Courtney emerged as the regular catcher for the Browns in May, Johnson was sent down to San Antonio to get more playing time, so he wasn’t around when the April 20 game was nished. But Cli Fannin was. Fannin had been the starting pitcher for the game, throwing to Johnson, but was pulled after 22⁄3 innings. e very day the original game was completed, May 26, the Fannin/
Johnson battery were working for the Missions; Fannin had also been sent down by the Browns. Shreveport beat San Antonio, 7-3, and Fannin was tagged with the loss—and also the loss in the American League Browns vs. White Sox game!
With the Missions, Johnson got into 24 games, batting .325 with three homers
Darrell Johnson
by Bill Nowlin
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