The Big Unit's Home Security: A 100-MPH Fastball for Intruders

Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson famously kept a bag of baseballs by his bed for home security. Confident in his legendary arm, he reasoned that if he heard a noise, he wouldn't be throwing pillows—he'd be throwing 'some kind of leather.'

Biography & Personal Stories Sports & Games Oddities & Curiosities

The Most Intimidating Man in Baseball

Few athletes in modern sports history have projected an aura of pure intimidation quite like Randy Johnson. Standing at a towering 6-foot-10, the left-handed pitcher known as "The Big Unit" was a spectacle of menacing potential on the mound. His delivery was a flurry of limbs and fury, culminating in a fastball that routinely broke 100 miles per hour and a slider that seemed to defy physics. For nearly two decades, batters approached the plate against him not just with a plan, but with a palpable sense of self-preservation. This was, after all, the man whose pitch once collided with a bird in mid-flight, vaporizing it in a now-legendary explosion of feathers.

A Different Kind of Home Field Advantage

That same terrifying precision, it turns out, was not confined to the baseball diamond. Every person has a theoretical plan for the unsettling sound of a bump in the night. For most, it involves a lock, a phone, or perhaps a more conventional weapon. For Randy Johnson, it involved his arm. In a candid interview with journalist Graham Bensinger, the Hall of Famer revealed his unique approach to home security. Instead of a firearm on his nightstand, Johnson kept something far more personal: a bag of baseballs.

If I hear something, I'm not going to be throwing pillows. I'm going to be throwing some kind of leather.

The image is at once terrifying and darkly humorous. One can only imagine the sheer panic of an intruder facing not a homeowner, but a five-time Cy Young Award winner armed with his weapon of choice, ready to paint the inside corner of a darkened hallway.

The Psychology of the Pitch

What makes this anecdote more than just a quirky piece of trivia is what it reveals about mastery and instinct. Johnson was not a man unfamiliar with firearms; he's a known hunter. His choice to rely on baseballs was not one of necessity, but of supreme, almost unfathomable confidence in his own singular talent. In a moment of high-adrenaline crisis, people revert to their deepest training. For a soldier, it might be a weapon system. For a doctor, a diagnostic checklist. For Randy Johnson, it was the familiar weight of a five-ounce ball of stitched leather.

Throwing a baseball with lethal accuracy was the skill that had defined his entire adult life. It was more than a profession; it was an extension of his own body. In that context, a firearm is an impersonal tool. A fastball, delivered from his own hand, is a personal statement. It’s a declaration that the most dangerous thing in the house was, and always would be, Randy Johnson himself.

A Legacy in Leather

The story of the baseballs by the bed endures because it perfectly encapsulates the larger-than-life persona of The Big Unit. It speaks to a level of specialization where one's greatest skill bleeds into every other facet of life. It’s a testament to the idea that true mastery isn't just about what you can do in a controlled environment like a stadium, but what you trust yourself to do when everything is on the line. For Randy Johnson, the strike zone was wherever he needed it to be—even if it was in his own living room at two in the morning.

Sources

Share this post
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
Loading more posts...