Over here (because it's so long) is a retrospective of the 1998 trade deadline that saw the Astros acquire Randy Johnson from Seattle minutes before the trade deadline.
There were a couple of ways I thought about doing this. One was to update it as though it was in real time. Another was to post it at 11:58pm on July 31, 2013.
But now there is a calm before the storm - before the draft, and before the 2013 trade deadline, both of which figure to be fairly active. There's also a little bit of an, "I don't want anyone to do this before me" factor. There is nothing noted about stats, trade evaluation, later performance, mainly because the post was long enough, and also because that could be the subject of another longread. You can read this post from USS Mariner on whether or not Johnson quit on Seattle in 1998 for some perspective.
I do hope you enjoy it.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
