1940 Walter Johnson Handwritten Signed Letter

Walter Johnson owned a dairy farm in Germantown, Maryland from 1935 until his death in 1946, on the land where Seneca Valley High School currently stands. This letter was written from that exact property, on his personal Germantown letterhead, postmarked September 1940. As a Seneca Valley alumni, this one is personal. The hallways, the fields, the parking lot, all of it was once Walter Johnson's farm. This is not just a piece of baseball history sitting in a collection. It is a piece of the ground I walked every day for four years.

Johnson writes that he is heading to St. Louis, passing through on his way west and again on the 18th and 19th, planning to attend games being played there for his old Washington Senators batterymate Gabby Street. Street had just begun his second career in 1940 as a radio broadcaster, providing color commentary for Browns ballgames - a natural fit for the man Johnson himself once described as "always talking, always hustling, full of pep and fight." Street had spent four years as Johnson's personal catcher in Washington, and the two clearly remained close long after their playing days ended. Johnson had compiled 417 wins, struck out 3,509 batters, and spent 21 seasons as the heart of the Washington Senators - yet here he is in 1940, just a Germantown neighbor writing a casual note about catching up with an old friend in St. Louis.