Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Johnson got help for final autograph

A poignant part of reading through the 1946 issues of The Sporting News was the on-going coverage of Walter Johnson’s last months.

In April, Johnson had been hospitalized at Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., suffering from what was eventually diagnosed as a brain tumor.
Every couple of issues TSN reported on Johnson’s condition in what was an eight-month series of rallies and relapses, with the great pitcher slipping into and out of comas and varying degrees of lucidity. As his condition worsened, the once-husky Johnson wasted away to 100 pounds.

In a news short in the Dec. 4 issue, the sporting paper reported that Johnson had sent a birthday card to his old boss, Clark Griffith, who turned 77 on Nov. 20. The item read . . .

CARD FOR GRIFF FROM BIG TRAIN
One of the most prized mementoes of the seventy-seventh birthday anniversary of Clark Griffith, president of the Senators, was a card from Room 103, Georgetown University Hospital. Accompanying the card was a letter from Nurse Sara Shea, who wrote: “Walter Johnson asked me take his hand in mine and help him guide the pen so he could sign it. I did and I enclose his greeting to you.”

On Dec. 7, Johnson went into a coma from which he never regained consciousness. He died just before midnight on Dec. 10.

As a collector, I’d like to think that what must surely have been Walter Johnson’s last “autograph” survives somewhere today.


2 comments:

  1. It would be really cool to see that letter/birthday card turn up somewhere. Hopefully the signature has not been chopped up to fit into a modern "cut signature" card.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Great story, Bob. That's one of the best ones I've heard lately.

    ReplyDelete

Your comments, criticism, additional information, questions, etc., are welcome . . . as long as they are germane to the original topic. All comments are moderated before they are allowed to appear and spam comments are deleted before they ever appear. No "Anonymous User" comments are allowed.