Jerry Michael Johnson (December 3, 1943 – November 15, 2021) was an American professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

. He played in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB) with the Philadelphia Phillies,

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Y ...

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central division. Since , they have played at Progressive Fi ...

, Houston Astros,

San Diego Padres The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1969, the club has won two NL penn ...

, and

Toronto Blue Jays The Toronto Blue Jays are a Canadian professional baseball team based in Toronto. The Blue Jays compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Since 1989, the team has played its home games ...

Career

Third baseman

Johnson was signed by the

New York Mets The New York Mets are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of Queens. The Mets compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member of the National League (NL) East division. They are one of two major league ...

as an amateur

free agent In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is a ...

third baseman A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

in 1962. He batted .248 for their Western Carolina League affiliate, the Salisbury Braves in 1962, and committed seven errors in only 29 games for a .868 fielding percentage. He batted .238 with an .872 fielding percentage in 1963, and the Mets began experimenting with him on the mound. He made eleven pitching appearances for the California League's Salinas Mets that season, and had a 6.75

earned run average In baseball statistics, earned run average (ERA) is the average of earned runs allowed by a pitcher per nine innings pitched (i.e. the traditional length of a game). It is determined by dividing the number of earned runs allowed by the number ...

without a decision. With an .870 fielding percentage in 1964, the notion of Johnson as a third baseman was abandoned, and he was converted to pitcher by the

New York–Penn League The New York–Penn League (NYPL) was a Minor League Baseball league that operated in the northeastern United States from 1939 to 2020. Classified as a Class A Short Season league, its season started in June, after major-league teams signed th ...

's Auburn Mets. Johnson pitched in the Mets minor league system through 1967. Following the season, Johnson was obtained by the Philadelphia Phillies from the Mets in the 1967 minor league draft.

Philadelphia Phillies

Johnson made his major league debut on July 17, 1968 in the first game of a doubleheader against the Chicago Cubs at

Shibe Park Shibe Park, known later as Connie Mack Stadium, was a ballpark located in Philadelphia. It was the home of the Philadelphia Athletics of the American League (AL) and the Philadelphia Phillies of the National League (NL). When it opened April 12, 1 ...

. He gave up two

earned run In baseball, an earned run is any run that was fully enabled by the offensive team's production in the face of competent play from the defensive team. Conversely, an unearned run is a run that would not have been scored without the aid of an erro ...

s in one inning of the Phillies' 8–4 loss.

Curt Flood trade

Johnson spent two years with Philadelphia, before moving to the

in a controversial transaction. On October 7, 1969, he was sent by Philadelphia along with

Dick Allen Richard Anthony Allen (March 8, 1942 – December 7, 2020) was an American professional baseball player. During his fifteen-year-long Major League Baseball (MLB) career, he played as a first baseman, third baseman, and outfielder, most notably ...

and

Cookie Rojas Octavio Víctor "Cookie" Rojas Rivas (born March 6, 1939), is a Cuban former professional baseball second baseman / outfielder, coach, and manager, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Cincinnati Reds, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Lo ...

to the St. Louis Cardinals in the trade that brought

Tim McCarver James Timothy McCarver (born October 16, 1941) is an American former professional baseball player and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from to , most prominently as a member of the St. Louis Cardina ...

, Byron Browne,

Joe Hoerner Joseph Walter Hoerner (November 12, 1936 – October 4, 1996) was an American professional baseball relief pitcher, who played 14 years in Major League Baseball (MLB), for seven different teams. A native of Dubuque, Iowa he grew up in nearby Key ...

and

Curt Flood Curtis Charles Flood (January 18, 1938 – January 20, 1997) was an American professional baseball player and activist. He was a center fielder who played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Cincinnati Redlegs, St. Louis Cardinals, ...

to the Phillies. After Flood refused to report to his new team, St. Louis sent

Willie Montañez Guillermo Montañez Naranjo (born April 1, 1948) is a Puerto Rican former professional baseball first baseman, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the California Angels (), Philadelphia Phillies (–, ), San Francisco Giants (–), ...

and a minor leaguer to Philadelphia to complete the trade. Flood believed Major League Baseball's

reserve clause The reserve clause, in North American professional sports, was part of a player contract which stated that the rights to players were retained by the team upon the contract's expiration. Players under these contracts were not free to enter into an ...

was unfair and appealed his case to the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

. Although his legal challenge was unsuccessful, it brought solidarity among ballplayers as they fought against the reserve clause and sought

free agency In professional sports, a free agent is a player who is eligible to sign with other clubs or franchises; i.e., not under contract to any specific team. The term is also used in reference to a player who is under contract at present but who is ...

San Francisco Giants

He was 2–0 with a 3.18 ERA for the Cards when they dealt him mid-season to the

for Frank Linzy. With the Giants, Johnson emerged as one of the top relievers in the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

, finishing sixth in Cy Young Award balloting during an era when such an honor was rare for

relief pitcher In baseball and softball, a relief pitcher or reliever is a pitcher who enters the game after the starting pitcher is removed because of fatigue, ineffectiveness, injury, or ejection, or for other strategic reasons, such as inclement weat ...

s. In 1971, Johnson went 12–9 with a 2.97 ERA and eighteen saves for the division winning Giants. In his only post-season, he pitched 1 innings and gave up two runs to the Pittsburgh Pirates in game four of the 1971 National League Championship Series.

Later career

During Spring training 1973, Johnson was selected off waivers by the

. He was traded from the Indians to the Houston Astros for

Cecil Upshaw Cecil Lee Upshaw Jr. (October 22, 1942 – February 7, 1995) was an Americans, American professional baseball right-handed relief pitcher, who had a nine- year career in Major League Baseball (MLB) (1966–1969, 1971–1975), for the Atlanta Bra ...

at the

Winter Meetings Representatives of all 30 Major League Baseball teams and their 120 Minor League Baseball affiliates convene for four days each December in the Winter Meetings to discuss league business and conduct off-season trades and transactions. Attendees in ...

on December 3, 1973. He was released by the Astros at the end of the 1974 season, and signed with the

in 1975. After two seasons in

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United State ...

, he was traded to the newly created

for Dave Roberts, who had just been purchased by Toronto from the Padres. Johnson was the winning pitcher (as a reliever) in the first-ever Blue Jays game on April 7, 1977. Johnson went 2–4 with a 4.60 ERA in the Blue Jays' inaugural season, at the end of which he retired. Following his major league career, Johnson played with the 1989 St. Lucie Legends of the

Senior Professional Baseball Association The Senior Professional Baseball Association, referred to commonly as the ''Senior League'', was a winter baseball league based in Florida for players age 35 and over, with a minimum age of 32 for catchers. The league began play in 1989 and had ei ...

. Johnson died from complications of

lewy body dementia Lewy body dementias are two similar and common subtypes of dementia—dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) and Parkinson's disease dementia (PDD). Both are characterized by changes in thinking, movement, behavior, and mood. The two conditions have si ...

, and

COPD Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a type of progressive lung disease characterized by long-term respiratory symptoms and airflow limitation. The main symptoms include shortness of breath and a cough, which may or may not produce ...

in 2021 at the age of 77.

References

External links

Jerry Johnson
at Baseball Gauge
Jerry Johnson
at Baseballbiography.com

at Astros Daily
Jerry Johnson
at Pura Pelota (Venezuelan Professional Baseball League) {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Jerry 1943 births 2021 deaths Algodoneros de Unión Laguna players American expatriate baseball players in Canada American expatriate baseball players in Mexico Auburn Mets players Baseball players from Miami Cafeteros de Córdoba players Cleveland Indians players Deaths from dementia in California Deaths from Lewy body dementia Deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease Denver Bears players Florida Instructional League Mets players Florida Instructional League Phillies players Greenville Mets players Hawaii Islanders players Houston Astros players Jacksonville Suns players Leones del Caracas players American expatriate baseball players in Venezuela Major League Baseball pitchers Mexican League baseball pitchers Philadelphia Phillies players St. Louis Cardinals players St. Lucie Legends players Salinas Mets players Salisbury Braves players San Diego Padres players San Diego Padres (minor league) players San Francisco Giants players Toronto Blue Jays players Tulsa Oilers (baseball) players Williamsport Mets players