Did Big Unit Lose Something Over The Winter?

Pinch me because I must be dreaming. Based on some very preliminary exit polling from the west coast of Florida, it seems possible that the Big Unit may have lost a couple feet off his fastball over the Winter. This isn’t as good as Johnson blowing out his cartilage-starved knee, but I’ll take anything I can get. Last night, in his first Spring Training start with the Yanks, Johnson topped out at 94 on the radar gun and press reports suggest most of his fastballs were in the low-90s. I realize that this is just a Spring Training game and it is possible that Johnson was taking it easy, but I have my fingers crossed. This guy is going to be 42 this summer and it has to come to an end at some time. So why not now? There is no doubt Johnson is a freak and as such, normal rules and precedent don’t apply. But who is to say that Johnson won’t suffer the same fate as Warren Spahn, the man many consider to be the greatest lefty of all-time. Spahn was a forty-something horse in 1963, going 23-7. But he fell off a cliff the next year and was out of baseball two years after his 23 win season. Things can go in a hurry and I am just wondering if we are about to see history repeat itself. It is obviously too early to tell, but I am going to keep an eye on those radar splits this spring. Johnson is all about power and if he has indeed lost something, he is going to have a hard time earning the $48 million the Yanks owe him through 2007. And how do you think the cranky unit is going to respond to questions that he his gas has lost some octane? Such questions drove Pedro Martinez crazy last year and the bet here is Johnson will be even less diplomatic.