Randy Johnson buzzes the tower

The decision to trade Randy Johnson just burned the Mariners again.

Somehow, I don’t think any of us mind this time, though. I know I didn’t.

I was cackling maniacally as I listened to Johnson steer his mid-game interview on Root Sports directly into the path of Howard Lincoln, the franchise’s former CEO. Then—just in case anyone thought it was an accident—he backed up over Lincoln once again during his half-inning of work on the radio broadcast.

I think what made this so glorious is knowing that just how sensitive the businessmen who’ve controlled this team truly are.

And here was a beloved pitcher, a seminal part of the team that saved baseball in this city, going on the television station that is owned by the team and picking at a decades-old scab and there was nothing that Lincoln or any of the other suits could do about it.

It was so delicious that I didn’t just listen to the whole thing again on Wednesday morning, I transcribed all 7 minutes of it.

My only regret is that words can’t fully capture what it looked like in the booth after Johnson mentioned Lincoln’s name. Fortunately, however, we have a picture! Here’s a screen shot from the broadcast.

The interview ended with two outs in the top of the second, but Johnson’s outing wasn’t finished. When he joined Rick Rizzs for the radio broadcast, he once again brought up Lincoln.

Randy: “Well, John Stanton and Kevin (Martinez) have been working on this for a while. I was a little hesitant because I even felt like it has taken a long time, and I never had any answers why it didn’t happen sooner with Howard Lincoln. I think the misconception is I left there. Well, no, I got traded. Big difference. I didn’t leave. I wasn’t a free agent. I got traded. And I don’t even why I was traded. The year before in ‘97, I was 20-4, finished second in the Cy Young. If there was any thought that I was old and broken down, then that should have—the next year ‘98, when they traded—’97 should have solidified why I was healthy.”

Rick Rizzs: “Well, we’re going to put up a No. 51 for you at the ballpark that will be there forever after Ichiro gets up there this year. Here’s the pitch on the way to Gurriel, and it’s outside 2-2 the count.”

Randy: “Well, I’m honored and privileged. The 10 years in Seattle were pivotal in my career, and to be with the group of players that I was, to do the things that we did collectively in ‘95, that ballpark may not be there that they’re playing in today if we collectively, the players from the past, didn’t do what we did.”

All right, so what do we really make of all this?

1. There’s no real controversy about Johnson going into the Hall of Fame as a Diamondback.

   Yes, he pitched 10 years for the Mariners. He threw the first no-hitter in franchise history in 1990 and won the Cy Young Award in 1995, a season he punctuated by allowing three hits in nine innings of the one-game playoff with the Angels.

   But Johnson won four straight Cy Young Awards and a World Series title with the Diamondbacks. He was transcendent.

2. Johnson isn’t entirely over the way things ended in Seattle.

   Neither am I, honestly. After he went 20-4 in 1997, Seattle decided against signing him to a contract extension. At the time, the Mariners were worried about Johnson’s durability. He had just turned 34 and had been limited to eight starts in 1996 because of back issues. However, not only did Johnson come back to win 20 games in ‘97, but that was the first of six successive seasons in which he started 30 or more games. That made this quote from Mariners president Chuck Armstrong age particularly poorly: “We simply concluded that, at this time, what we think it would take for an extension is not a good investment.” Armstrong said that in November 1997. The Mariners traded Johnson to Houston the following season, Seattle acquiring Fredy Garcia, Carlos Guillen and what turned out to be John Halama.

Would Seattle have been better off keeping Johnson? Absolutely. Maybe the only thing that 2001 team was missing was a firebreathing ace at the front of that rotation.

Did the Mariners collapse because of the deal? Nope. They went from winning 78 games in 1998, the year they traded Johnson, to 79 victories in ‘99 to winning more than 90 games for four straight seasons from 2000 through 2003.

There is a part of me that appreciates Johnson’s unwillingness to just let it go. It is the petty part of me no doubt. The side that spent 20 years stewing about a stepfather, and has only recently come to appreciate the peace that comes from letting go of past resentments.

Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy someone else basking in it, though. Or enjoying a good revenge flick, which reminds me, my study in the dark arts of resentment has taken a cinematic turn as I look at why the 2004 movie “Man on Fire”—which stars Denzel Washington—epitomizes what I believe to be the single non-negotiable element of a good revenge flick.