Back Injury Ends Johnson’s Season

Randy Johnson, last season’s American League Cy Young Award winner, will undergo back surgery next month and will be out for the rest of the season, the Seattle Mariners announced.

The 6-foot-10 left-hander has been bothered by a bulging disk in his back.

Johnson came to Los Angeles on Monday to be examined again by Dr. Robert Watkins, a back specialist. Watkins had examined him July 19 in Anaheim.

“After examining Randy in Los Angeles. . . . Watkins recommends that Randy not pitch again this season and undergo surgery within the next couple of weeks,” Mariner General Manager Woody Woodward said.

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Dwight Gooden has had his share of problems. That doesn’t mean he had any sympathy for fired New York Met manager Dallas Green.

Gooden, who maintained his silence while Green was still managing the Mets, sharply ended it.

“I’m surprised he lasted that long,” Gooden told The Record of Hackensack and the Daily News of New York. “I have no respect for him, as a manager or as a person.

“I saw how he handled players in the past. When he first came in, things were OK. When you did well, he was your best friend. When you struggled, he was against you. It was never his fault. Nothing was ever his fault.”

Green managed Gooden from 1993 until June 28, 1994, when the right-hander was suspended by baseball for failing drug tests.

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Pittsburgh Pirate president Mark Sauer, eased out of running day-to-day operations following an ownership change in February, resigned. He is not expected to be replaced. . . . Hank Greenwald, the San Francisco Giants’ play-by-play announcer most of the past 16 years, announced that he will retire at the end of this season.