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"Huson has had his own Web page for a while, thanks to the efforts of a California fan named Edith Kelly."
"I don't even know the address, but it's about four or five pages and it has a lot of pictures on it," he said. "It's pretty neat."
Gene Warnick
Herald Writer
SEATTLE - Jeff Huson looked to the far end of the Seattle Mariners' clubhouse, where Ken Griffey, Jr. was talking with a handful of reporters.
"Junior doesn't have one," Huson said.
Huson then nodded to another corner of the clubhouse, where Alex Rodriguez was buttoning his shirt.
"Alex doesn't have one," Huson said.
He then began going down the row of lockers with his eyes, scanning each one until he arrived at Randy Johnson's.
"The Big Unit doesn't have one," Huson said.
And what exactly was Huson talking about? What does he have that the Mariners' biggest stars don't?
Try his own web page on the Internet. Log on to The Official Jeff Huson HomePage .
You can check out a Huson photo gallery, career statistics and recent news. There's his biography from the University of Wyoming and links where you can find more information about Huson, who has played for five teams in his eight seasons in the major leagues. you can ask Huson questions or enter the slogan contest, in which fans can win two tickets to the Mariners' interleague game June 10 in San Francisco for the best idea for a Huson-related placard.
The Huson home page is the brainchild of Edith Kelly, a 24-year-old high school Spanish teacher from San Francisco.
Kelly first met Huson in the restaurant of a Boston hotel in 1990, where Kelly and her family were vacationing and Huson was staying with the Texas Rangers.
Because she was a Giants fan and unsure who the players were, Kelly had her younger brother, Nathanael, ask then for autographs. nathanael, then barely into his teens, told the handful of Rangers sitting at a table for breakfast the autographs were for his sister, who was a deaf mute.
"Everybody was sitting there looking at me, staring," Kelly said.
That was before Harold Baines started laughing. Baines had already signed a souvenir for Kelly, so he knew the story was a lark.
Some other Rangers wouldn't give their autographs until Kelly came over to talk with them. When they asked about the story of her being a deaf mute, her brother responded, "It comes and it goes, that's why it's so embarrassing."
A couple of weeks later, Kelly found a card that featured basic sign language. She mailed it to Huson, who responded by sending her his baseball card with the inscription, "To Edith, I'm glad you're not a deaf mute. Take care, Jeff Huson."
Kelly lost track of Huson until midway through the 1995 season, when her father noticed Huson was called up from Class AAA by the Baltimore Orioles. She sent him another note and he responded with another autograph. The met at Oakland-Alameda County Stadium the next year.
When Kelly bought her father a computer scanner for Christmas in 1996, he suggested she create a web site. It was an unofficial home page until last month, when Huson signed a charter.
"For the most part, they (family and friends) think it's a little silly," Kelly said, "but they're always very proud when it gets a little recognition."
The Huson page was featured in the new book "Baseball on the Web" by Rob Edelman. It was named the Fastball Fan Site of the Week for March 29-April 4.
Kelly, who is being considered to teach a class on web design at her high school because of the Huson site, said she's received plenty of feedback.
"A lot of people e-mail me and say, 'I hit a home run in Little League, where's my web site?'" she said.
Huson admits he was apprehensive when he first heard there was a home page devoted to him.
"I thought I had some psycho after me," Huson said, "like in the movie 'The Fan.'
"Now I think it's pretty neat. She's done a good job with it. other than a few questions and statistical information, I've done nothing. That's all her."
Huson said he's heard from several long-lost friends of his family because of the web page, which has received more than 3000 hits.
"And I've only gone there a handful of times," Huson said. "It's not me going there every day."
©Everett Herald 1998
July 2, 1999
He was there for Nolan Ryan's sixth no-hitter. His seventh, too. He was there for Ryan's 300th victory and Cal Ripken's 2,131st game. He started one of the most memorable double plays ever for the Texas Rangers and nearly finished a feat accomplished by only 10 men in the history of baseball. He is ... Jeff Huson? "My brother-in-law calls me the Forrest Gump of baseball," the Angels utility infielder says. "I somehow keep showing up at these famous events." Once undrafted and unwanted, Huson now is baseball's unlikely. Unlikely everything. He has gone through eight organizations, including six in the past three years. He rarely has been an everyday player, and his career average (.233) would be impressive only if this were bowling. Released three times. Traded twice. A free agent after each of the past two seasons. Yet, here he is, an 11-year veteran. "You can't do anything to me that hasn't been done to me already," Huson, 34, says. "Why get bent out of shape over anything? I mean, look at the career I've had. Hey, I'm in the Hall of Fame." His name is anyway. On lineup cards and in box scores from games other guys made famous. But that's Huson, a singles hitter who swings for the fences only when trying to be funny. Like, for example, discussing his Web site. Web site? Yes, there's an official Jeff Huson stop on the Internet. It was developed by the president of his fan club.
Fan club? Yes, there's one of those, too. Hey, we told you this was unlikely. "The last time I checked the page, we had something like 5,000 hits," Huson says. "And I've only been there 4,000 times myself. That means there are 1,000 other people out there looking at it. That's pretty good." He was the Rangers shortstop for both Ryan gems and saved the first with a key defensive play for the second out of the ninth. Huson charged a Rickey Henderson dribbler and fired to first to barely catch baseball's all-time base stealer. "After we threw the ball around, Nolan said, 'Nice play, Huey,' " Huson says. "I turned and thought, 'God, please don't let them hit the ball to me now.' I was actually scared." Alas, the final out settled in someone else's glove. Huson started at third base for the Orioles when Ripken played himself into history. That fact alone was unexpected. See, Baltimore was playing the Angels, who had four left-handers in their rotation. Huson was platooning and starting only against righties. But, that night, the Angels started Shawn Boskie, their lone right-hander, putting Huson in the lineup. "I bought the CD they played that night, John Tesh," Huson says. "I get goose bumps every time I hear it. But I don't need the CD anymore. I can hear it just thinking about that night. It was pure luck that I was even out there." Lucky, too, was the behind-the-back pass Huson made to start a double play that still is shown on the videoboard between innings in Texas. He went up the middle to snag a Ripken grounder and tossed Magic Johnson-like to Dickie Thon. An unassisted double play, though, is still fresher in Huson's mind. With Montreal in 1988, he caught a line drive while the Cubs were trying a double steal. He stepped on second for the second out, then brushed runner Vance Law aside so he could throw to first to complete the triple play. "I reached the dugout, and the guys were mad at me," Huson says. "I was thinking, 'Hey, a triple play. That's cool.' But then they told me how stupid I had been. What an idiot." Had he tagged Law instead, Huson would have had an unassisted triple play, something that has happened only 10 times this century. Unlikely? Huson has eight lifetime home runs and went 500 at-bats before he hit the first of his career. Still, during his first pro season, he batted cleanup. One of his teammates setting the table for him that year, the guy hitting third, was Larry Walker. "I had 16 home runs," Huson says. "It was a small ballpark, 370 feet to center. The next year, I used the same swing and hit one."
Many of these facts can be found at the Web site. Also available there are a baseball card featuring Huson and Smokey Bear and his hat size (7 1/4). That's Huson's hat size, not Smokey's. Anyway, it's a fine tribute put together by a schoolteacher named Edith Kelly. Even if she does refer to the utility player as a "late-inning assassin" and "seventh-inning samurai." "I think she enjoys doing it for a normal person," Huson says. "Superstars usually get the attention." Somehow, this very normal person and very normal player have combined for a career that's very different.