Frederic J. Frommer -- The Nats, Stephen Strasburg and Walter Johnson

ESPN wonders whether he's "the best prospect ever."

Jeff Passan of Yahoo! Sports says that his fastball "inspires such great expectations . . . that if he doesn't turn Gatorade into wine the first time he hits up a cooler in a major-league dugout, his apostles might cry."

Could 20-year-old pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg be the man to save the Washington Nationals?

The team's fans have certainly had plenty to cry about so far -- not one winning season since the Nats moved to the nation's capital in 2005. But this week, the team is expected to use the No. 1 pick in the draft to nab the San Diego State junior, who's one of the most heralded pitching prospects in a generation. The Strasburg hype has been manic, fueled by a fastball topping 100 mph, a blizzard of strikeouts and a dart thrower's control.

But Nats fans banking on Strasburg to turn the team into a champion would do well to remember the story of another young pitching sensation who arrived in Washington a century ago with similar hopes riding on his right arm.

In 1907, the Washington Nationals (also known as the Senators) were on their way to their seventh losing record in seven seasons in the startup American League. There was no Twitter to spread the word, but newspaper hype nonetheless set Washington atwitter about its prized prospect, a 19-year-old named Walter Johnson.

"SECURES A PHENOM," screamed a June 30, 1907, headline in this newspaper, over a report that Johnson had pitched 75 consecutive scoreless innings in the semipro Idaho State League, with 166 strikeouts in 11 games. Washington's manager, Joe Cantillon, helped fuel the hype, quipping that if Johnson was all he was made out to be, the team would field nothing but him and a catcher when he took the mound. "He strikes out most of the men, so why have an infield and an outfield?" he said. "I shall give all the boys but the catchers days off when Johnson pitches."

The Johnson hype ballooned as he prepared to pitch for the Nationals that summer. A July 6 Washington Post story described him as "perhaps the most sensational pitcher that has ever come into prominence."

The same kind of extravagant praise can be heard in much of today's coverage of Strasburg. A May 10 Post article about his college no-hitter noted that he was averaging nearly 17 strikeouts per nine innings. "For the final home start of his college career," the story began, "Stephen Strasburg -- the hardest-throwing, highest-achieving, most-scrutinized, soon-to-be-richest pitcher in the history of hype -- entered a world of impossible expectations. In his 11 previous starts this season, he had never lost, and almost never fallen short, and the last opportunity to watch him awakened a phenomenon."

Baseball rewards the worst team with the top draft choice, so the Nats will get first crack at Strasburg. But back in Johnson's time, there was no baseball draft, so those Nationals of a century ago didn't have any advantage in acquiring the best new players. And as it turned out, the team got to Johnson just in time.

Clark Griffith, manager of the New York Highlanders (later renamed the Yankees), had received a tip from a friend in Idaho to check out the hard-throwing pitcher. Griffith wrote back asking that Johnson come to New York for a tryout, but by then, the Nationals had already signed him. Griffith wound up doing himself a favor -- he took over the Washington team a few years later, and Johnson would become his best player.

Another American League rival had also gotten word of Johnson but found the hype unbelievable. Hughie Jennings, manager of the Detroit Tigers, conceded that someone had tipped him off about Johnson, but he figured that the pitcher's stats must have been a joke. Until he saw him perform. When Johnson made his major league debut against the Tigers, he surrendered two runs in eight innings. His overpowering fastball, delivered with a sidearm motion, was said to hiss, a description that has also been applied to Strasburg's heater.