After spending two very good seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, in which he batted .312 and .315 respectively in 1968 and 1969, Johnson was dealt to the Angels on November 29th as part of a five-man deal that brought Pedro Borbon and two others to the eventual N.L. West champ Reds.
Initially, it looked like a steal for the Angels, as Johnson went on to collect 202 hits with 85 runs scored and 86 runs batted in while edging out Boston’s Carl Yastrzemski for the league batting title.
Still only 27 years of age, it seemed like Johnson was on his way to a solid if not star career in the Majors with his new club.
Sadly, Johnson’s time with the Angels was full of controversy, running afoul of manager Lefty Phillips, eventually getting benched for “loafing” among other things that spilled into the next season.
After numerous more run-ins with management, he was benched indefinitely, leading to only 65 games played in 1971, batting only .260, a 69 point drop from his batting champ campaign the year before.
Finally on October 5th of 1971, he was granted a trade and dealt to the Cleveland Indians for, among others, the great Vada Pinson, with Cleveland hoping the change of scenery would bring him back to All-Star status.
However, though he had a couple of decent seasons over the next few years of his career, he never again reached the level of play between 1968-1970, done as an active player after the 1976 season at only 33 years of age.
By the time he retired, he finished with a very nice .288 batting average, with 1331 hits over 4623 at-bats in 1322 games, but sadly never again able to reach that level of play that made him one of the more promising young talents in 1970.
