Connie Johnson

Clifford Johnson Jr.

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 4", Weight 200 lb.
• High School Stone Mountain High School
• Debut 1940
• American League Debut April 17, 1953
• Final Game September 14, 1958
• Born December 27, 1922 in Stone Mountain, GA USA
• Died November 28, 2004 in Kansas City, MO USA

BR page

Biographical Information

An imposing 6' 4" right-hander, Connie Johnson started out in the Negro Leagues at age seventeen in 1940. Jesse Owens, the great Olympic track star, recruited him for the Toledo Crawfords of the Negro League. With the exception of his time in the United States military with the Army during World War II, Connie spent most of the 1940s pitching for the Kansas City Monarchs. Blessed with a blazing fastball, and after the war he was even stronger, he was purchased before the 1952 season by the Chicago White Sox from the St. Hyacinthe Saints of the class C Provincial League where he had gone 15-14 with a 3.24 ERA and led the league with 172 strikeouts in 1951.

The White Sox placed Connie with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox of the class A Western League and the right-hander went 18-9 with a 3.38 ERA in 1952. The 29-year-old again led the league with 233 strikeouts, pitching 248 innings. The White Sox brought him up in 1953 and Connie brought his heater with him, getting his first major league victory with a 10-strikeout shutout of the Washington Senators. But he returned to Triple-A the following year, helping lead the Toronto Maple Leafs to the International League pennant with 18 wins. He was 12-2 for the same club in the first half of the 1955 season when he was called back to Chicago.

During the 1956 season Connie was traded to the Baltimore Orioles along with George Kell, Bob Nieman and Mike Fornieles for Jim Wilson and Dave Philley. The deal worked out good for Connie as he led all Baltimore pitchers with a 3.43 ERA. That summer, Johnson was the losing pitcher in a memorable mound duel against his former team. Connie and George Zuverink combined to one-hit the White Sox only to lose to Jack Harshman, 1-0, who also threw a one-hitter.

Connie, who won a career-high 14 games for the Orioles in 1957, played one more season, going 6-9 with a 3.88 ERA in 1958. Overall the lanky fireballer went 40-39 with a 3.44 ERA, bowing out at the age of 35 with five seasons of major league ball under his belt. Johnson spent 1959 and 1960 with the Vancouver Mounties, going 8-5, and called it a career in the minors after eight seasons down under with a good 76-44 record and a 3.39 ERA. After baseball Johnson worked for the Ford Motor Company in Kansas City, MO, retiring in 1985. He died on November 28, 2004, at the age of 82.

Notable Achievements

• NAL All-Star (1940)
• NAL Wins Leader (1946)
• NAL Winning Percentage Leader (1942)
• NAL Games Pitched Leader (1946)
• NAL Saves Leader (1948)
• NAL Strikeouts Leader (1946)
• NAL Complete Games Leader (1946)
• NAL Shutouts Leader (1946)
• 200 Innings Pitched Seasons: 1 (1957)

Sources

Baseball Players of the 1950s

Related Sites

• Connie Johnson at the SABR Bio Project
• BR Minors page