ST. LOUIS - The television is on ESPN in the Arizona Diamondbacks' clubhouse and Randy Johnson stops a conversation in mid-sentence when he hears Curt Schilling introduced as the live talk-show guest. Teammates scurry to turn up the sound.

"Wait," Johnson says to his interviewer with a childish smile of delight, "This should be good. He always says something. You never know what it's going to be."

When Schilling is done, Johnson shakes his head, smiles again and re-assembles. "OK, now where were we?"

We were trying to explain how one extremely lanky lefthander has bonded with one extremely loose cannon to form baseball's most intriguing and imposing Odd Couple. We were trying to surmise if power pitching has ever had such a split personality.

"Our personalities are quite a bit different," Johnson said. "If you're in a room full of people and Curt is there, you'll know it. I could be there and you might never know it. He's a lot more outwardly, I'm a lot more methodical. But what we have in common is we both want to compete and we both want to be as good as we can possibly be."

In baseball history, there have been many successful righty-lefty combinations on one team, but rarely of such hard throwing prominence. The Cardinals at one time had Bob Gibson and Steve Carlton on the same staff, but only briefly. The Cubs had Ferguson Jenkins and Ken Holtzman, the Braves had Warren Spahn and Lew Burdette, the Phillies had Bunning and Chris Short, and the Mets had Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman.

But the twosome with which Johnson and Schilling are most readily compared is the former Dodgers duo Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. In 1965, their best collective year, Koufax was 26-8 with a 2.04 earned-run average and a league-record 382 strikeouts in 335 innings. Drysdale was 23-12 with a 2.77 ERA and 210 strikeouts in 308 innings. The two combined for three wins in the World Series that season as the Dodgers beat the Minnesota Twins in seven games. Koufax was 2-1 with a 0.38 ERA, while Drysdale finished 1-1 and 3.89.

Johnson, who is attentive to baseball history, respectful of its records and honored players, is cautious about such associations. He points out that Kouax and Drysdale had a stretch of six years together (1961-66) when both were in their prime.

"It's flattering, by all means," Johnson said. "But also, knowing the history of the game a little bit, I know Koufax and Drysdale did what they did for many years. What I've said, and what I've talked about with Curt, is let's do it for four or five years and that will be a standard. To do it for one or two years, like we have, is not the same. Time is how things are measured in this game.

"The one thing we have done as teammates is to strike out more than 300 batters. That's special stuff. And we have a chance to do some more special things together, but only time will tell."

Lee Thomas, former Cardinals outfielder and current assistant to the general manager of the Boston Red Sox, batted against Koufax and Drysdale. And as general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, he once acquired Schilling from Houston for Jason Grimsley. Thomas suggested there is at last one significant difference between Koufax and Johnson_a discernible mean streak.

"Koufax never threw inside," Thomas said. "Johnson will do that. He goes for the jugular."

Physically prepared

In 1996, Johnson suffered a lower back injury that limited him to just 14 appearances and eventually required offseason surgery. Since that time, with guidance from former major league pitcher Tom House, he has worked diligently to maintain his physical fitness and a peak performance level.

Johnson's elaborate 2 1/2 hour workout routine employs balance boards, rollers, weights, resistance apparatus and stretching. The movements are specifically targeted to the muscles he uses in his pitching motion, designed to improve strength and stamina, as well as build muscle memory. In one routine, Johnson stands on a balance board on one foot while bending from different angles to lift a weight with his left arm. Johnson is as passionate about discussing the topic of fitness as he is in pursuing it.

"Because of the back surgery, I am probably in as good physical shape at the age of 39 as anybody in the game, as guys who are much younger," said Johnson, who at 6 feet 10, 235 pounds has shoulders the width of Montana and a waist thin as floss. "Right now, I absolutely feel as strong as I have ever felt in my career.

"People talk about being mentally prepared, and Curt is a big believer in that. I know what I want to do mentally, and the more physically prepared I am, the better I can execute that."

Johnson, who could win his fourth consecutive Cy Young Award in a few weeks, has remarkable results to back up his philosophy. Over the past five seasons, he has pitched no fewer than 244 innings and struck out no fewer than 329 batters. He easily has thrown more pitches over that time than anyone in baseball. Yet, at an advanced stage in his career, he still throws in the upper 90s velocity-wise, still gets stronger as the game goes on.

This season, in which he has added a split-finger pitch to his repertoire, he pitched 260 innings and recorded 334 strikeouts. With a 24-5 record and a 2.32 ERA, he is having the best overall season of his life.

"A lot of people think Randy is just a tall, lanky lefthander. But if you saw the workout routine he goes through, you'd know he is a very, very strong guy," Arizona manager Bob Brenly said. "It takes a lot of pride and determination to do what he puts himself through.

"He's amazing. Certainly, Randy is a first-ballot Hall of Famer and if Curt can put together a couple of more years, he'll be right there as well."

Mentally prepared

What Johnson is to physical preparedness, Schilling is to mental awareness. Before his starts, he spends a lot of time studying videotape of opposing hitters, but only tape of those hitters batting against him.

"He goes there knowing what each hitter is going to do against him and what he's going to do against each guy," Brenly said. "I think Tony Gwynn was the only other guy I remember who used extensive videotape the way Curt does. And I've never seen any other pitcher who does it."

Equipped with the knowledge, Schilling formulates a game plan and applies it like no other pitcher in baseball. He has an uncanny ability to hit his marks and make his pitches. His strikeouts-to-walks ratio of 315 to 33 is unheard of.

"He probably has better control than anybody in the game," Thomas said. "That son of a gun can hit a gnat in the butt at 60 feet 6 inches. And he's still doing it, and still throwing as hard, in the seventh and eighth innings."

Schilling, 35, made stops in Cleveland, Baltimore, Houston and Philadelphia before arriving in Arizona. Along the route, his willingness to speak his mind and spare no punches has sometimes rubbed his teammates the wrong way. But Thomas believes Schilling has matured.

"I think he is a better person than he was before," Thomas said. "He's always been very cocky and a little arrogant, not that cocky is necessarily a bad thing. But he just had a way about him that rubbed some people the wrong way. I think he still is cocky, but he backs it up."

To that end, Thomas believes Schilling has benefited from Johnson's presence. "I think Schilling is a guy who can be pushed and when he is, he answers the call," Thomas said. "If a teammate wins 25 games, he wants to win 26. He is as competitive a person as you'll ever meet."

Given the choice, with only one game to win, Thomas would give Schilling the ball. "No question," Thomas said. "If I could only choose one, he would be the guy I would want on the mound."

Cardinals magic

Facing Johnson and Schilling in a regular-season series is one thing, but the dynamic duo become even more dangerous in the postseason. Johnson and Schilling had nine of their team's 11 wins in the postseason last year, including all four World Series victories. The finished with a combined postseason record of 9-1, 1.26 ERA, 8Ð innings pitched, 50 hits allowed and 113 strikeouts.

During the division series last year, the Cardinals beat Johnson but lost twice to Schilling, who allowed only one run over 18 innings. But over the years, the Cardinals have been relatively successful against both. The Diamondbacks had a (46-12) record this season when one of those two was on the hill. But the two combined for a 1-3 record against the Cardinals. Schilling was 0-2, including a 6-1 loss at Busch Stadium on Sept. 25. In the two starts, he allowed 12 runs in 14 innings. Over his regular-season career, Schilling is 5-9 against the Cardinals.

"They are always a tough club," Schilling said. "They have a better offense than they had last year, and they had a good offense last year."

Postseason included, Johnson is 5-7 in his career against the Cardinals, which includes a loss in Game 2 of last year's division series. Johnson, who will start Game 1 for Arizona, beat the Cardinals earlier this season, allowing three runs in seven innings. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said his club has no magic elixir for dealing with Johnson and Schilling. But they have no fear.

"Those guys are extremely tough," La Russa said. "It's not like we've had a lot of success against them; they've been very tight ballgames. The thing is you have to be very disciplined, and this bunch is good at that.

"You can't give up at-bats. You have to really concentrate on every pitch and every at-bat."

Former Cardinals outfielder Lou Brock, who fenced with Koufax and Drysdale during his Hall of Fame career, agreed. He said the game plan for dealing with Johnson and Schilling is the same as it is for dealing with any overpowering pitcher.

"Against great power pitching like that, your approach doesn't really change," Brock said. "But when you face a pitcher like a Koufax, or a Johnson or a Schilling, I always feel within each at-bat, you are going to get one pitch to handle. Against other pitchers, you might get more than that, but against those kinds of guys, you normally get one pitch.

"The great hitters put that pitch in play, the lesser hitters miss it or foul it off. If you foul it off, you know you're in trouble."

Relishing the moment

Their numbers against the Cardinals simply embellish the challenge and enrich the experience for Johnson and Schilling. In addition, the Diamondbacks will be at less than full strength, with cleanup hitter Luis Gonzalez and second baseman Craig Counsell out for the season.

"We've had some adversity, but it's nothing like what the Cardinals have gone through, they don't compare," Schilling said. "No matter what happens with Gonzo, we know he will be back next year. That's not the same as dealing with what happened to Darryl Kile. We would do well to look (at the Cardinals) and see how they have handled what they have gone through.

"I think the division series with the Cardinals last year was really overlooked because of what we did in the World Series. I think it was one of the best division series baseball has had in a long time, a lot of clutch hits and dramatic moments. I would expect this time to be no different."

If the loss of Gonzalez and Counsell, and the flat manner in which the Diamondbacks finished the regular season puts any extra pressure on Johnson and Schilling, neither one minds.

"I've always relished that responsibility of pitching in a game that your team has to have," Johnson said. "You assume that responsibility, and that responsibility is put on you based on what you have done in the past in situations like that."

Schilling was uncharacteristically vulnerable in his last three starts. Besides the loss to the Cardinals, he gave up eight earned runs in a loss at Colorado and four in a no-decision with Milwaukee. After 258 innings of pitching, some are wondering whether fatigue may be a factor. Schilling begs to differ. "I just didn't pitch well," Schilling said. "To say anything else would just be an excuse."

When the postseason bell tolls, he will be ready and willing. "I've always relished being counted on when it matters most, under extremely stressful conditions," Schilling said. "That's when you find out what you're made of. That's what you play for, that's what I get paid, quite frankly, an exorbitant amount of money for. You don't get paid to just play baseball, you get paid play well, you get paid to excel in those types of situations."

They go about it in different ways, but in the history of baseball, rarely has a pair of pitchers has as much velocity and as much success as Johnson and Schilling.