Big Unit's start makes for big drama

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The malevolent glare of Randy Johnson, his glowering eyes just barely visible over top of his glove, is the most menacing sight a hitter can face.

The unsuspecting American League, who went to sleep with visions of baby-faced Curt Schilling dancing in their heads, got it for two innings last night, with Ichiro staring right back and delivering the Infield Single Heard Round The World.

Then, in a postgame interview session, an unsuspecting member of the media got to experience life with Big Unit's eyes boring a hole in your skull. The only difference was that Johnson wasn't holding a lethal weapon in his hands, unless you count a bottle of Talking Rain.

How many innings, he asked Johnson, did he think he could be effective against an All-Star lineup like the one he had just shut down?

Death stare. Pregnant pause. Quivering reporter.

"Nine."

Then Johnson eyes softened, and he broke into laughter.

"What do you want me to say, two? I'm just kidding. See, I do have a sense of humor."

And Bobby Valentine does have a sense of the dramatic - although it took a rather circuitous route for Johnson, and not the previously announced Schilling, to wind up as the National League starter.

Schilling said he decided Monday night that it would be foolhardy to try to pitch in the All-Star Game just two days after working seven innings against the Oakland Athletics on Sunday, with his next start for the first-place Diamondbacks looming Friday in Anaheim.

"If they didn't care when I pitched, if they said it didn't matter, who knows what I might have done," Schilling said. "But everything matters for us. I decided Friday's start was more important than tonight's game."

Conspiracy hounds wondered if the whole thing had been orchestrated so that Schilling, leading the NL with 12 victories, could have the honor of being announced Monday as the starter, with the full knowledge that teammate Johnson would pitch, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

Not so, said Schilling, who insisted he "absolutely" thought he would pitch when he was named by Valentine on Monday at a news conference.

"I was holding out hope it was going to work out, but when I sat down to think about what was at stake for us as a club, I couldn't see how me coming out today would be good for the Diamondbacks," he said.

So Schilling tried to get a message to Valentine Monday morning, finally informing him early yesterday that he was a no-go. While he was being quizzed before the game about what he knew, and when he knew it, Valentine clearly was wondering how he had stepped into another minefield.

"Somehow, I'm going to be the bad guy here," he said, shaking his head.

Not fair, said Schilling, who took full blame for accepting the start under false pretenses.

"Bobby's been better than I had ever imagined," Schilling said. "He's the one who told me when I came here, `Don't do anything dumb.' I feel bad I put him in this spot, because honest to God, I hoped everything worked out so I could pitch an inning. But he's been as perceptive and positive about this as anyone possibly could."

When Johnson found out early yesterday he was getting the start, he told his teammate, "Thanks for giving me Ichiro, A-Rod and Manny."

The kidder.

Maybe Johnson didn't work himself up to full lather for an exhibition, but in the end, the right man was on the mound to start for the NL. Nothing against Schilling, but the All-Star Game is about electric matchups, and Johnson back pitching in Seattle gave the full potential for grand theater.

"I have no idea what adrenaline is going to be flowing through him," Schilling said. "I just know he's on six day's rest, and if I was putting money, it would be on that side of the field. There's going to be some double zeroes on the gun."

It's not known if Johnson reached 100 mph, but after Ichiro's single he set down six in a row, striking out three, to match Roger Clemens in zeroes.

The first batter Johnson faced, naturally, was Ichiro, the realization of a dream showdown that had been causing great excitement in Japan. Before the game, Yankees Manager Joe Torre had joked, "I don't think Ichiro can tell a left-hander from a right-hander anyway. He doesn't seem to give, either way."

Ichiro didn't give an inch, not even when Johnson knocked him off the plate with his first pitch. There would be no comic John Kruk bailouts, no Larry Walker madcap antics. He stood his ground and smashed a drive down the first-base line that Todd Helton snared with a dive. But Ichiro out-raced Johnson to the bag for one of his prototypical infield singles.

"It didn't help falling toward third base, and that's pretty much what I do," Johnson said. "When he's already out of the box three steps, he's got a head start on me. Helton made a great play and I was just late getting over. He got to the base so fast.''

Johnson was told that Ichiro's scouting report on him was that if Johnson threw a slider, he was dead. What was his scouting report on Ichiro?

Pause. "That I probably should have thrown him a slider. I was one pitch too late."

Spared the dreaded Mr. Snappy - let's see an interpreter try to translate that to Japanese - Ichiro merely added another small paragraph to his growing legend.

"I'm very honored to face Randy in an All-Star Game, rather than the fact I got a base hit off him," he said. "Randy is a great pitcher, and he was a Mariner and he wore No. 51 before me. One of the things I always keep in my mind is to keep this No. 51 with good dignity."

There is dignity, and there is All-Star frivolity. The Mariners' eight-man contingent, plus Manager Lou Piniella, was posing for a picture before the game - using a wide-angle lens, no doubt - when Johnson jumped into the scrum from behind, enveloping them in a group hug.

"That was my opportunity to say hello to (Lou) and congratulate all the other guys on the Mariners that made it," he said.

The death stare would come later.

Larry Stone can be reached at 206-464-3146 or at lstone@seattletimes.com.