Jackson Passes

Randy Jackson died Wednesday morning. An all-star before joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, his time with the team included a famous blast:

Jackson, who died on Wednesday morning at 93 at his home in Athens, Ga., was the last Brooklyn Dodger to hit a home run.

The Dodgers were playing their next-to-last game when Jackson’s drive landed in the upper left-field stands at Connie Mack Stadium off a pitch from the right-hander Don Cardwell, propelling Brooklyn to an 8-4 victory in a series that followed the Dodgers’ final home games at Ebbets Field.


Jackson was an unlikely candidate for his melancholy achievement: He had hit only one other home run that season, and he played in just 48 games while hobbled by a leg injury. And that home run seemed nothing special to him when the third-place Dodgers closed out their history the next day with a 2-1 loss to the Phillies, the last Brooklyn pitch delivered by an unproven left-hander named Sandy Koufax.

NYTimes.com

My thoughts go out to his family and friends.

Jackson’s overall career number are pretty much what we think of as MLB average, a .261/.320/.421 slash line. At the height of his career, from 1953 to 1956, he posted 9.6 rWAR, but was rather unproductive after that. He did hit 44 triples in 3549 PA or about 7 per 162 games.

from baseballmusings.com https://ift.tt/2YcM3C4