Inductee In An Instant
THE Ferguson Jenkins
Good day Eh! We’re back with our latest Inductee In An Instant. There’s no intro I can drop here to do this man justice so let’s just get straight into it!
FERGUSON ARTHUR “FERGIE” JENKINS
DOB: Dec. 13/1942, Chatham ON
MLB DEBUT: Sep. 10/1965 v St. Louis - got the win, 4.1 IP, 2 H, K
LAST GAME: Sep. 26/1983 v Philadelphia - 1.0 IP, 2 H
Teams played for: Phillies (1965-66), Cubs (1966-73), Rangers (1974-75), Red Sox (1976-77), (Rangers 1978-81) & Cubs (1982-83)
HONOURS & ACCOLADES
Buckle up for all of these:
Three-time All-Star (1967/1971/1972)
NL Cy Young Award Winner (1971)
Two-time Wins Leader (1971/1974)
NL Strikeout Leader (1969)
Lou Marsh Award Winner (1974, the award is given to Canada’s top athlete)
Texas Rangers HOF member
Chicago Cubs HOF member & had his #31 retired by the club
Received the Order of Canada (1980)
Inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame (1995)
Inducted to Canada’s Walk Of Fame (2001)
Inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame (1987) 🍁
Inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame (1991, 75.4% of the vote, 3rd ballot)
Before being signed by the Philadelphia Phillies by scout Tony Lucadello, Ferguson was a multi-sport star at Vocational HS competing in baseball, track, basketball, and hockey. Jenkins has some athletic bloodlines as his parents were rather athletic and have quite the tale of their own.
Fergie’s dad, Ferguson Sr, was a semi-professional baseball player with the Chatham Coloured All-Stars along with being an amateur boxer, chef, and, chauffeur.
His mom, Delores, is a descendant of American slaves who escaped via the Underground Railroad and settled down in Southwest Ontario.
As the childhood story goes, young Ferguson would practice throwing by using coal or rocks and throw them at passing boxcars with his friends where they would try to time their throws so their rocks would pass between the cars or land in open ones.
By all accounts, Ferguson’s 1971 year is regarded as his best season and it’s not hard to see why:
All-Star
wins Cy Young Award
Led the league in Innings Pitched (325), Games Started (39) & Wins (24)
Led the Majors in Complete Games (30), BB/9 (1.0), K/BB (7.11)
141 ERA+, 2.38 FIP, 1.049 WHIP
Greg Maddux, Curt Schilling, Pedro Martinez, and Fergie on the only MLB pitchers to have more than 3000 strikeouts with less than 1000 walks1
Oh ya…one last thing…
That’s right. During the off-season between 1967-69, Fergie played for the Harlem Globetrotters. How awesome is that?
A tip of the cap to a legend and gentleman of the game!
Thank you for checking in today. Until the next time…KEEP IT 80 GRADE!
Sources/Resources/Other Reading
https://baseballhalloffame.ca/hall-of-famer/fergie-jenkins/
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/jenkins-ferguson
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/j/jenkife01.shtml
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferguson_Jenkins
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fergie-Jenkins
Nemec, David; Flatow, Scott (April 2008). Great Baseball Feats, Facts and Figures (2008 ed.). New York: A Signet Book, Penguin Group. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-451-22363-0.
A true legend of Canadian sports.