By Tim Kelly, Sports Talk Philly editor 
While the Philadelphia Phillies acquired a pretty damn good left-handed pitcher at the 2009 trade deadline in Cliff Lee, even Lee pales in comparison to the trade that the Phillies reportedly discussed 16 years earlier.
Prior to his 2011 induction into the Phillies Wall of Fame, John Kruk told Sam Donnellon of the Philadelphia Daily News that the Phillies nearly acquired future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson prior to the MLB non-waiver trade deadline in 1993:
"If you remember the trade deadline, we had a chance to get Randy Johnson and they didn't want to give up, I think, Mike Lieberthal," the Krukker was saying yesterday. "Either him or Tyler Green . . . "
Kruk paused.
"Look, I love Lieby, he's one of my favorite people. But, at the time, I wish he was a Mariner."
"We were all gung-ho because we heard Randy Johnson was coming here," Kruk said. "That puts us over the hump. That's a win that day. Now you have him and Curt Schilling and Terry Mulholland? There's wins there. They didn't pull the trigger. So, there was some animosity, yeah."
If you don't remember the 1993 trade rumors, Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times reminded us of the rumors in a 1998 article:
"It seems like every spring they've talked about trading me," said Johnson, who was, indeed, the focus of trade talks in 1993 and '95. "How's that going to make me feel? I have legitimate reasons to be upset, but I'm trying to be the bigger man here."
