From Walter's SABR Biography: Walter Perry Johnson traveled a circuitous and improbable route to his major-league debut and subsequent stardom. He was born November 6, 1887, on a farm in Allen County, Kansas, the second of six children of Minnie (Perry) and Frank Edwin Johnson. As a child, he helped his parents scratch out a living on their 160-acre farm and found time for hunting and fishing, which became his lifelong passions. Other than occasional schoolyard pickup games, baseball had no place in his early life.
At the turn of the century, Frank Johnson was forced to give up his farm as a result of the persistent Kansas droughts. The family moved into the town of Humboldt, where Frank worked at odd jobs and Walter attended the eighth grade. At this time, Minnie’s parents and siblings were all moving to the oil fields of Southern California, attracted by the good weather and plentiful jobs. After years of poverty in Kansas, a move to the Golden State seemed very appealing to Frank and Minnie. They joined the migration in April 1902, settling in Olinda where Frank found work with the Santa Fe Oil Company as a teamster.
Working on the Kansas farm and in the oil fields, Walter developed a strong, muscular, 6-feet’1 frame which eventually filled out to 200 pounds. At 16, he gained his first baseball experience with a sandlot team. Shortly afterward he started his first game against adults, pitching for a semipro team sponsored by the local oil company. Soon he was a permanent member of the oil company team, and was so impressive that a reporter commented, “Johnson was presented as a high school kid, but he is certainly a graduate in the science of delivering the ball.”
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