SEATTLE — The Big Unit will take center stage as part of a big ceremony when his No. 51 jersey is retired by the Mariners, which the club announced on Thursday will take place on May 2.
That Saturday night’s game is slated for a 6:40 p.m. PT first pitch against the Royals, and it will coincide with a special pregame ceremony.
Randy Johnson’s number will become the fifth retired in club history, along with Hall of Famers Ken Griffey Jr. (No. 24), Edgar Martinez (No. 11) and Ichiro Suzuki (No. 51), as well as Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson (No. 42), which has been retired by all MLB teams.
In addition to Johnson’s ceremony on May 2, the Mariners will also host Randy Johnson ‘80s Jersey Night presented by T-Mobile on May 1 for the first 20,000 fans.
The club had announced plans for Johnson’s number retirement in June, but a date hadn’t been set until now, which coincided with the Mariners rolling out their promotional schedule for the 2026 season.
“There was really never any significance to me wearing the No. 51,” Johnson said in June. “It kind of over time, I think when you wear it for a majority of your career, and I played 22 years in the Major Leagues, and I was No. 51, so I guess that kind of is how you’re recognized, in some regards, by fans, and that number kind of becomes symbolic with your identity.”
While Johnson enjoyed much of his career success and accolades with the Diamondbacks after leaving Seattle — his plaque in the National Baseball Hall of Fame features him donning Arizona’s cap — it was with the Mariners where he truly blossomed into one of the best left-handed pitchers of all time.
Johnson arrived in Seattle in a 1989 trade with the Montreal Expos, a transaction that remains one of the most monumental in franchise history. He had his true breakout season in 1993, going 19-8 with a 3.24 ERA and the first of his six 300-plus-strikeout seasons. He was obviously the most instrumental pitcher in the 1995 season that this region still talks about.
“There wasn’t a lot of expectations in Seattle at that time,” Johnson said. “We hadn’t finished over .500 to that point, and so there was a lot of growing pains, and we all kind of gelled.”
Overall, he had a 130-74 record with a 3.42 ERA and 51 complete games with the Mariners, striking out 2,162 in 274 games (266 starts).
He remains among the all-time franchise leaders in strikeouts (second) and wins, starts and innings pitched (third), among other categories. Johnson was inducted into the Mariners Hall of Fame in 2012 and the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015, the same year that the Diamondbacks retired his No. 51.
He retired after the 2009 season, having also played for the Expos (1988-89), Astros (1998), Diamondbacks (1999-2004, 2007-08), Yankees (2005-06) and Giants (2009).
