The National Baseball Hall of Famer and one of the most dominant left-handed pitchers in baseball history became the second player to have their No. 51 retired by the Mariners
SEATTLE — For the second year in a row, an iconic player in the history of the Seattle Mariners who wore No. 51 had his jersey retired.
Last year, near unanimous 2025 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Ichiro Suzuki had his No. 51 retired.
On Saturday at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, legendary left-handed pitcher and 2015 National Baseball HOF inductee Randy Johnson became the second No. 51 to join team legends/fellow HOFers Ken Griffey Jr. (No. 24) and Edgar Martinez (No. 11) and baseball legend Jackie Robinson Jr. (No. 42) with their numbers hanging in left-center field at T-Mobile Park.
"I'm grateful and honored there's room for another No. 51 to be retired," Johnson said at his ceremony Saturday. "One number, two players representing one team."
Johnson became one of just a handful of players to have his number retired by multiple organizations. The Arizona Diamondbacks, who was the club Johnson represented when he was inducted into the HOF in Cooperstown, N.Y., were the other team to retire Johnson's No. 51.
It was announced last year, shortly before Suzuki had his number retired, that Johnson would also receive the same honor.
The announcement and Saturday's ceremony was a welcome one, albeit that one seemed overdue.
Johnson pitched with the Mariners from 1989-98 after being acquired in a trade between Seattle and the Montreal Expos.
While in the Pacific Northwest, Johnson made five of 10 career All-Star Games (1990, '93-95, '97) and won the first of five career Cy Young Awards ('95).
Johnson, a 6-foot-10 hurler nicknamed "The Big Unit," detailed in a news conference held via Zoom last year that tenuous relationships with previous Seattle ownership, going back to when the team traded him to the Houston Astros in '98, played a role in him waiting so long to see his number retired.
But now, over 30 years after he first stepped foot in the PNW, Johnson's contributions to the franchise are now immortalized into the architecture and backdrop of T-Mobile Park.
"I know for myself, I got the chance to catch him as a young player here," Current M's manager and Johnson's catcher Dan Wilson said in a pregame interview Saturday. "Learning from him, just going through the paces with him made me a better player. It's just a great night for past, present. There's nostalgia here and it's always good for our (current team) to see that."
Johnson's impact on the Mariners will be further solidified when he has his statue unveiled in 2027. It was announced by longtime Mariners announcer and Master of Ceremonies Rick Rizzs that Johnson will join Suzuki, Ken Griffey Jr., Edgar Martinez, Mike Cameron and Mark McLemore with statues in the or around the ballpark.
The statue of Cameron and McLemore raising the American flag, modeled after a photo of when the duo did so in a game after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, will be unveiled later this season.
Johnson's praises have been sung by former coaches, teammates and fans who saw what he did for Seattle. And now, future generations of fans will get to see a visual representation of it.
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