Wayne Johnson

HS basketball coach, Fly-fishing wannabe

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

Ernie Johnson is a treasure

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

In 1991 his wife called him from Romania about a three year old boy who could not walk and could not talk.

Here is what she said on that phone call.

"this guy's so much more than we can handle"

They took him anyway. He became their sixth child.

His name was Michael, and the man on the other end of that phone was Ernie Johnson.

Within a year the diagnosis came back. Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is a genetic disease that takes the muscles one at a time, and it mostly takes boys.

Michael went into a wheelchair. Later he needed a ventilator to breathe.

Here is what Ernie Johnson says about getting that news.

"What's amazing is the value reveals itself."

He lived 33 years.

Here is how his father put it when it ended.

"This guy we adopted from Romania in 1991 and diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy lived a miraculous life of 33 years."

And then this.

"We lost michael johnson today and we're crushed. But we also know we'll see him again, and that sustains us."

That was five years ago.

Today Ernie Johnson announced that this is his last season hosting Inside the NBA. Thirty-seven seasons in that chair.

He wanted one thing understood.

"Just to be clear, I'm not retiring."

"Just cutting back."

He called it a turning of the page. Thirty-seven seasons means he was in that chair before most of the people watching him were born.

He is still doing March Madness and other work for TNT and CBS. He also started a production company and named it 32 Bowties, and the whole point of it is telling feel-good sports stories.

Of course it is.

Now go back one more generation.

His father was Ernie Johnson Sr., who pitched for the Milwaukee Braves, was a teammate of Hank Aaron, and was on the 1957 team that won the World Series. He went 7 and 3 with four saves that season. Those Braves are still the last team from Milwaukee to win one.

Then he put the ball down, went into a booth, and called Braves games from 1962 until 1999.

So the son is stepping back from a microphone 64 years after his father first sat down behind one.

Be straight about it. A man leaving a studio show is not a tragedy. He is 70 years old, he had a long run, he is not even fully leaving, and plenty of people would take that deal.

But here is the line he keeps coming back to, from a speech he gave in 2019.

"There's value in everybody."

He did not learn that in a television studio.

He learned it from a boy in Romania that his own wife said was more than they could handle.

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

Has there ever been anyone more butt-hurt over not winning an award than he is?

[Reuters @Reuters]

WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE
President Trump escalated his invective against Norway, calling it a ‘shit house country’ and saying Norwegian immigrants are not welcome in the United States because the Nobel committee, based in the capital Oslo, has not awarded him a Peace Prize https://t.co/zMMNukdzi9

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

Great read

Milwaukee will be hard to beat

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

A scout drove out to a junior college in Missouri to watch him throw, and he walked eight batters in a row.

That is the story everybody tells. Somebody brought it up again this month and he corrected them.

It was nine.

They drafted him anyway. Fourth round, 2018.

Aaron Ashby is from Kansas City, Missouri, out of Park Hill High School. His uncle Andy pitched fourteen seasons in the big leagues and made two All-Star teams.

The Texas Rangers had taken him the year before that, in the 25th round, 764th overall. He turned it down and went back to the junior college.

His first big league appearance was two thirds of an inning and four earned runs.

Two seasons later he went 2 and 10 as a starter. Milwaukee signed him to a five year extension anyway, and then his shoulder went.

Arthroscopic surgery. He lost all of 2023. He says he has never gotten the slider he had in college back, not once, not all the way.

Then 2024 at Triple-A Nashville, a 8.04 ERA across 25 games. That is the number teams look at when they decide somebody is finished.

In August of that year, still in Nashville, he started messing with a knuckle-curve. He was in Milwaukee about a week later.

Last season he put up a 2.16 out of the bullpen. This season he went 13 and 3.

And then October started and he just stopped giving up runs.

Fifteen and two thirds scoreless innings to open this postseason. Five hits. Three walks. Seventeen strikeouts. He has pitched in eight of the Milwaukee Brewers ten playoff games and every single one at home.

He is one out away from the record. Andrew Miller went sixteen scoreless to start the 2016 postseason and nobody has matched it. Ashby passed Goose Gossage and Andy Hawkins to get here.

Pat Murphy watched him get a five out save in Game 2 Saturday and called it Goose Gossage-like.

He is also the first pitcher in the history of the postseason to record at least five outs in six straight appearances without allowing a run in any of them.

The pitch doing it is the curveball he was not supposed to have. Miguel Sano hit the fifth curveball he ever threw in the big leagues over the wall, back in August 2021.

He has thrown 1,045 of them since. Not one has left the yard.

They asked him how he stays that calm with the tying run on second in the ninth.

"It's a lot of breathing."

"Just kind of praying for peace, I guess."

Be straight about where this sits. Milwaukee is up 2-0 but the next three are in Tampa Bay, the Rays won 94 games, and nobody finishes a postseason at 0.00.

But a kid walked nine straight hitters with a scout in the stands, and a week from now he might own the record for the best October any bullpen arm has ever had.

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

Do his supporters even LISTEN to what he says? Who is the ‘we’ that is making so much money, and why should I be happy about it? All I know is that everything is costing more than ever. I don’t want a liberal government, but I don’t want this guy either…..

[Acyn @Acyn]

TRUMP on HIGH GAS PRICES: We’re making money like we’ve never made before. They’ll say: President Trump is bragging about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. I don’t give a damn. We’re making a freaking fortune.

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@BerryhillRl @RyanHyattMedia Winning out is in no way ‘backing into’ anything

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@makenzie_means Should be banned all together

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

Might have to blow it up a little…..but pretty cool mixture of fog and sunrise on the drive thru the canyon this morning

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@hannahbaugh Only thing better than this match up would be to have the Rangers in it again…..other than that, I’m really looking forward to this one.

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@makenzie_means Feel free to spread more Texas Tech positivity….I got your back

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

Pretty cool….of course picture doesn’t do it justice

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@KelRobin_5 @cskinney @SharonCurtisLaw I’m with @KelRobin_5 on this. Using today’s realities is never a very good measuring stick for how things were 25+ yrs ago. It’s a whole different world, one that we had many disadvantages in. Our Head Coaches (Gerald and Spike) were not part of those disadvantages!

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@makenzie_means John Carter….🙄
I didn’t hear it on the original broadcast…..I was yelling JFC!

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@LuxWade I’ll take an ugly win every weekend

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@lanecart07 Over-react much?

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

W
That’s really all that matters, no hand-wringing or ‘Fire someone’. Use the next two weeks to get better. @TexasTechFB
#wreckem

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

97 has flat out whooped our ass up front

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@EdwardPBertram @JustASportGuy Rarely will anything get 100% agreement…..I would’ve gone for it

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@makenzie_means And there’s your stop

[Wayne Johnson @thirdhubert]

@makenzie_means Your wish is granted

Now get another stop!