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of other years. Now it has vanished. The youth is gone.”
    As the Senators boarded the train back to Washington and what appeared to be an anticlimactic Game Six and a likely New York World Series triumph, Thomas later detailed a pivotal conversation between Johnson and Clark Griffith. The Senators’ owner was considered to be the only one who could raise the Big Train’s spirits at such a low point.
    â€œDon’t think about it anymore, Walter,” Griffith told Johnson. “You’re a great pitcher. We all know it. Now tonight when we get home, don’t stand around the box office buying seats for friends or shaking hands with people who feel sorry for you. Go home and get to bed early. We may need you.”
    More prophetic words were never spoken.
    Somehow the Senators battled back to take Game Six, 2–1, behind Tom Zachary’s complete game. That set up the epic Game Seven. The starting pitchers were Curly Ogden for Washington and Virgil Barnes for New York. But Senators manager Bucky Harris said he was ready to employ all available arms, in large part to keep Giants rookie Bill Terry off the base paths. After Harris went over his strategy with Griffith, the Senators’ owner called Johnson at home. The Big Train was told to be ready for late-inning relief work. At first, Johnson’s wife, Hazel, was ecstatic about the news. Then she realized that her husband could be a three-time loser in the World Series.
    On a beautiful day in mid-October, the stands were filled to overflowing in the nation’s capital. Posing for photographs before the opening pitch, President Coolidge told the opposing managers, “May the better team win.”
    Besides Johnson’s inability to win with the nation watching, the 1924 World Series was also known for acrobatic catches or at least the attempts at such grabs. The Giants’ Hack Wilson, perhaps trying
to copy Goslin’s Superman effort in Game One, soared toward the stands after Bucky Harris’s home-run blast. But instead of clearing the fence, “Wilson’s ample girth made full contact with the top of it,” Thomas wrote.
    To Grantland Rice, the collision sounded “like a barrel of crockery being pushed down the cellar stairs.” You don’t find sportswriting like that these days.
    In the bottom of the eighth inning, the Senators scored two runs to tie the game at 3–3. Moments after the Washington rally, the sellout crowd began to chant Johnson’s name. The hometown crowd was ready to see what magic the Big Train had left. But those up in the press box, especially the guest columnists, didn’t like his chances. The belief was he was too exhausted, too old to do much good. Still, there was little doubt that he was coming into the ball game.
    â€œ[Harris] had at his disposal not merely the best pitcher on the team, or even the best in the league—he had The Greatest Pitcher in the History of Baseball to call upon,” Thomas wrote in the biography of his grandfather. The capital letters are his.
    Visibly nervous, Johnson walked out to pitch the top of the ninth inning. Even though some later remembered that his face was ashen, his warm-up throws were soon cracking Herold “Muddy” Ruel’s catcher’s mitt. As the warm-up continued, a buzz began to spread through the stands—the Big Train’s fastball was back.
    Or was it?
    After Johnson got one out, Frankie Frisch scorched his offering into right-center field. Only a great throw by Earl McNeely held him to three bases. After a conference at the mound, the Senators decided to walk Ross Youngs, a left-handed hitter, bringing up RBI champion Kelly. Washington was playing the averages here, as the right-handed Kelly was only two for nine against Johnson. The gambit worked as Kelly went down on three fastballs. That made two outs, with Emil “Irish” Meusel coming up. Johnson got out of the inning when Meusel hit a