Jack Billingham

John Eugene (Jack) Billingham (born February 21, 1943) is a former starting pitcher in Major League Baseball who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers (1968), Houston Astros (1969–1971), Cincinnati Reds (1972–1977), Detroit Tigers (1978–1980) and Boston Red Sox (1980).^[1] The 6-foot-4 hurler won at least 10 games for 10 consecutive seasons, and he helped lead Cincinnati's legendary "Big Red Machine" to back-to-back World Series titles in 1975 and 1976. He batted and threw right-handed. Billingham is the cousin of Christy Mathewson.

Career

Billingham proved to be one of baseball's greatest World Series pitchers. In seven games (including three starts) for Cincinnati, he went 2–0 with a 0.36 earned run average (ERA), allowing just one earned run in 25 ¹⁄₃ innings pitched. Billingham came to the Reds in one of baseball's biggest trades. The Reds sent Lee May, Tommy Helms and Jimmy Stewart to the Astros for Billingham, Joe Morgan, Denis Menke, César Gerónimo, and (then minor leaguer) Ed Armbrister prior to the 1972 season.

Originally signed as a free agent by the Dodgers in 1961, Billingham was groomed as a relief pitcher in the Los Angeles farm system, reaching the major leagues in 1968. Despite a good season (50 games, 3–0 record, eight saves, 2.14 ERA), the Dodgers left Billingham unprotected in the expansion draft and he was selected by the Montreal Expos, though he would never pitch for them. In January 1969, the Expos traded Donn Clendenon to the Houston Astros for Rusty Staub. Clendenon refused to report, and Billingham was later sent to Houston to complete the trade. In 1969, Billingham was again used as a reliever (52 games, 6–7 record, 4.25 ERA). In 1970 he was moved into the starting rotation (46 games, 24 starts), before becoming exclusively a starting pitcher in 1971.

1973 was Billingham's best season, going 19-10 with a career-best 3.04 ERA. He led the National League with 40 starts and seven shutouts and earned a berth on the National League All-Star team. He followed that with a 19-11 season in 1974.

On April 4, 1974, Billingham gave up Hank Aaron's 714th career home run, which tied Aaron with Babe Ruth for No. 1 on the all-time home run list at the time.^[2]

For his career, Billingham went 145–113 with a 3.83 ERA and 1,141 strikeouts in 2,230 ²⁄₃ innings.

Awards

• Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame inductee: 1984
• National League All-Star: 1973
• Johnny Vander Meer Award (Reds' Most Outstanding Pitcher): 1973

NL leader

• Innings pitched: 1973 (293 ¹⁄₃)
• shutouts: 1973 (7)
• Hit batsmen: 1971 (16) and 1977 (10)

See also

• List of Major League Baseball career hit batsmen leaders

References

External links

• Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet, or SABR Biography Project