Page 213 - 1975 BoSox

206 ’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL
and 15 RBIs, and in June he was brought back up to the Browns. In all, Johnson played in 29 games for the Browns, batting .282 and driving in nine runs. He almost helped tie a major-league record on July 22. ree pinch-hitters in a row had hit safely, but Johnson ied out. A serious spike wound prevented him from getting a few more games under his belt. en, on July 28, the Browns traded Johnson and out elder Jim Rivera to the Chicago White Sox for catcher J.W. Porter and out elder Ray Coleman.
With the White Sox, Johnson served as backup catcher behind Sherm Lollar, getting into 22 games but for only 37 at-bats. He hit .108 and drove in just one run.
Johnson spent the next four years playing minor-league ball. In 1953 he was optioned out and spent the entire season with the Memphis Chicks of the Double-A Southern Association, playing in 113 games and batting .249 with four homers and 44 RBIs. He was actually traded back to the Browns on June 13, sent by the White Sox with Lou Kretlow and $75,000 to St. Louis for pitcher Virgil Trucks and third baseman Bob Elliott. But under the terms of the deal, he remained with Memphis for the balance of the season.
ere was no more St. Louis Browns team after 1953, as the franchise was moved to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Orioles. In 1954 Clint Courtney was still the regular catcher and Johnson was on the major- league roster early in the season, but was optioned to Richmond on cutdown day without appearing in a major-league game. For the 1954 Richmond Virginians (Triple-A International League), Johnson appeared in 90 games, hit six homers, drove in 37 runs, and recorded a .261 average.
On November 4, 1954, Johnson was recalled by Baltimore and packaged in an 18-player trade sending him to New York Yankees, who in turn assigned him to their Denver Bears Triple-A club in the American Association. e Yankees were set at catcher with Yogi Berra and Charlie Silvera, and there wasn’t much room for Johnson. Silvera was traded after 1955, but both Elston Howard and Johnny Blanchard were emerging prospects and Darrell was the odd man out.
An interesting sidenote is found in an October 19, 1955, article in e Sporting News that said Johnson had never had an injury to his throwing hand in seven years of catching professionally. e reason cited was his double-jointed thumbs. “Most of the time a foul tip knocks the thumb into the other joint and I can just snap it right back in,” he said. He was reported to have a peculiar throwing motion; he would curve his thumb outward. Nonetheless, he had an outstand- ing throwing arm.
Playing under fellow catcher Ralph Houk at Denver, Johnson had a very full 152-game season in 1955 and hit for a strong .306 average, with four home runs and 49 RBIs. Never the fastest man around (he stole only one base in his six major-league seasons, and articles in e Sporting News in April 1957 and again in 1958 ranked him “slowest player afoot” on the Yankees), Johnson hit an inside-the-park home run on June 6 on a hard-hit grounder past rst base, which took a carom and deceived the right elder, who was looking under the bullpen bench when the ball was actually sitting on the eld in fair territory.
In 1956, again with the Bears, Johnson appeared in 107 games and hit a strong .319, with seven homers and 48 RBIs. After the season, the Yanks sold Charlie Silvera to the Chicago Cubs and that opened up the possibility of a slot on the major-league team. Johnson played winter league ball with Licey in the Dominican Republic, though going 48 consecutive at-bats without a hit may have undercut his prospects. Johnson was an active golfer and won more than one tourney during his years in baseball, among them one in February 1957 involving more than 150 active and former ball- players.Golf could have done him in. e whole story probably hasn’t been told, but in 1979 Whitey Herzog recalled a time when “Darrell Johnson, Don Larsen, Billy Hunter, and myself were all in golf carts and ran o a bridge.”2
Johnson impressed Yankees manager Casey Stengel and coach Bill Dickey at St. Petersburg in the spring of 1957 and made the big-league club. He spent the full years of 1957 and 1958 with the Yankees, but saw very little action. Yogi Berra played a pretty full year,