Big League Omens?

This morning I woke up thinking about baseball, and suddenly had the urge to read about 6’ 10” power pitcher Randy Johnson. I scrambled onto Wikipedia and saw he is the all-time leading strikeout king for lefties. Then I found this interesting tidbit:

(From Wikipedia)

In a freak accident on March 24, 2001, during the 7th inning of a spring training game against the San Francisco Giants, Johnson threw a fastball that struck and killed a dove. The unlucky bird swooped across the infield just as Johnson was releasing the ball. After being struck by the pitch, the bird landed dead amid a "sea of feathers." The official call was "no pitch."^[3]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbmwv-0cUTw

I remember when seeing this incident, I wondered if it was supposed to mean something larger. After all, back in those days Randy Johnson was the tallest and fastest pitcher in Major League baseball, in a sleek county, filled with a Giant’s appetite. Mr. Johnson slew this dove in the face of the San Francisco Giants -a city of angels renowned for peacenik warriors.

In late March of 2001, the dove’s “freak accident”, was broadcast over the nation’s airwaves. Just this morning, I did some quick math and noticed that those days were exactly opposite to the time, when we first sent military troops to fight in Afghanistan, with a junkball pitch. In other words, the dove crossed the path of our fastest pitcher in the twelfth week of 2001, while political war hawks shattered our peace-doves, with twelve weeks remaining in the same year.

Footnotes:

When the St. Louis football team relocated to Phoenix in 1988, they became the Phoenix Cardinals. Since this made two birds, they eventually renamed their team The Arizona Cardinals, burying the Phoenix.

In 2001, in large part due to Randy Johnson’s pitching finesse, Arizona beat the New York Yankees in the seventh game, in a series that was delayed one week, due to 9-11.

Randy Johnson now pitches for the San Francisco Giants and currently is in spring training. He is no longer our tallest MLB pitcher. He also pitched a perfect game in his last high school appearance, which could be looked at as a sign that he would also achieve this rare feat in the majors.