Walter Johnson was born on November 6, 1887 on a farm near Humboldt, Kansas. His parents were Frank and Minnie Johnson, and he had five siblings. When Johnson was 14, his family moved to Orange County, California. Later, he moved to Idaho, where he played baseball for a small team from Idaho and worked for a phone company. When someone from the Washington Senators saw him pitch, they signed him to a contract in 1907.