Jeff Huson News
Updated November 30, 2000
Relive the the last few years of Jeff Huson's Career:
The Jeff Huson HomePage News '99
The Jeff Huson HomePage News '98
The Jeff Huson HomePage News '97
Jeff Huson Retires
Wednesday, December 21st, Jeff Huson officially announced his retirement. He has accepted a job as the roving infield instructor for the Chicago Cubs. ³It will be fun, plus I will get to be home a little more in the summer time,² said Huson, who has three school-aged children.
In his thirteen-year career, Huson has played for seven major-league ballclubs (Montreal Expos, Texas Rangers, Baltimore Orioles, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, Anaheim Angels, Chicago Cubs) and nine major-league franchises (add the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks to that list.).
Tough decision: Infielder Jeff Huson is mulling several options.
Anaheim and Colorado would like him to play another season. Montreal has offered a job as a roving minor-league coach. And the Sporting News, to which Huson contributed this season, would like him to take an expanded role.
Huson, though, has yet to hear from the Cubs, who plan to make Augie Ojeda their utility infielder.
SOSA GOES REALLY DEEP AS CUBS KEEP SINKING DEEPER
By Teddy Greenstein, Chicago Tribune
Tribune Staff Writer
August 22, 2000
HOUSTON -- One day Jeff Huson's grandchildren will ask him what it was like to play with the great Sammy Sosa.
Huson will start the story by saying, "There was this night in Houston ... " And Huson will talk about having witnessed one of the most majestic home runs in baseball history.
"What was so neat about it was the fog by the lights," Huson said. "It was like that shot from `The Natural.'"
Sosa blasts monster HR
August 22, 2000
BY MIKE KILEY STAFF REPORTER, Chicago Sun Times
HOUSTON--Baseball movie buffs remember Robert Redford smashing a lofty homer to right field in "The Natural" that smashed light bulbs high on the standard above those bleachers and ignited a fireworks-like burst of electric confetti to accompany a sentimental musical score.
The moment was panned by hardcore purists as too Hollywood, too unreal, too contrived.
Well, Sammy Sosa hit the same homer to left in Houston's Enron Field Monday night. He got great reviews, even as the Cubs dropped their sixth straight in a 5-4 loss to Houston. But then, Sosa is a true natural with 22 homers in his last 39 games and he provides his own background salsa music to pep up a somber atmosphere.
"The thing about it, it was the fog by the lights," said Cubs utility infielder Jeff Huson, who said he has never seen a more magnificenthomer since entering the majors in 1988. "It was `The Natural' shot.
"If the glass had been in front of the lights, you would have seen shattering glass. It was just so monstrously high. It was like `Oh, my god, where's it going?' "
"What was neat was the crowd buzzed for 10 minutes afterward," Huson said. "They booed when they said the distance was 457."
BASEBALL NOMAD BEATS THE ODDS
17 August, 2000
By Teddy Greenstein, The Chicago Tribune
Jeff Huson heard the pulsating salsa music and started dancing.
Sammy Sosa, the Cubs' self-appointed disc jockey, smiled in approval from his locker nearby.
"Before the season's over," Sosa yelled out, "he'll be speaking Spanish."
Don't bet against it. Huson has bucked the odds throughout his 13-year major league career.
The fact that he even has had a big-league career might be the biggest shocker. Huson wasn't drafted out of high school. He had to walk on at Glendale (Ariz.) Community College. Even after earning all-conference honors at the University of Wyoming, Huson went unclaimed by every major league team and had to play a summer of semi-pro baseball in Beatrice, Neb.
But Huson grabbed a spot on Montreal's roster in 1988 and hasn't let go since. He has played for Texas, Baltimore, Colorado, Milwaukee, Seattle, Anaheim and the Cubs. He also has had to endure stints in 10 minor-league cities.
And now, after all those bus rides and ankle sprains, Huson might be playing the best ball of his career.
An afterthought on manager Don Baylor's bench for most of the season, Huson has earned seven starts in the last 11 games.
"He's always in the middle of something," Baylor said. "and it's always good."
Huson has nine hits in his last 21 at-bats. He stole home as part of a double steal last week at Los Angeles. And he drove in the Cubs' only run Wednesday with a seventh-inning single.
"It is fun to get an opportunity and come through once in a while," he said. "Even as a utility guy, I have a competitive streak--or else I wouldn't be here."
Even with the competitive streak, Huson didn't figure to find himself in a Cubs uniform this season. Huson almost retired in 1997 after Colorado cut him in spring training.
Huson credits Baylor, then the Rockies' manager, for talking him out of retirement. A dejected Huson remembers asking Baylor, then the Rockies' manager, this simple question: "Can I still play?"
Baylor answered in the affirmative.
"He gave me an honest opinion," Huson said. "I admire the man for that."
Baylor gave Huson another dose of honesty in the offseason. Baylor encouraged him to sign with the Cubs but promised nothing more than a chance.
"That's all I was looking for," Huson said.
Huson has proven that he belongs. He has committed only one error in 47 games while playing second base, shortstop and third. He made a great play Wednesday at third, throwing out Shawon Dunston from the edge of the outfield grass.
And as for his hitting, how many players could pound out four hits after going 13 games between at-bats? That's what Huson did on Aug. 5 at San Diego.
The sizzling stretch has done wonders for Huson's batting average, which has jumped from .182 to .253. And it has helped his psyche, which took a beating earlier in the year.
"Sometimes I'd sit [in the dugout] and wonder: `What am I doing here?'" he said. "I never doubted I could do it, but I wondered if I'd get the opportunity. As a professional athlete, it's always in the back of your mind: `Is today the day I'm going to lose it?'"
Although Huson appears to have found it, he might not want to return to the diamond next season. There's also a strong possibility no team will offer him a job.
"It totally depends on what my family wants me to do," Huson said. "And it's not my wife. She's always said that she'll never tell me when to stop because she doesn't want me to be mad at her five years down the road. It's what my kids want. They don't care that I'm Jeff Huson, Chicago Cubs. All they care about is that I'm dad."
Huson has three children, ranging in age from 4 to 11. His 8-year-old son, Kyle, has served as a Cubs batboy for part of the summer.
"It's Kyle who I'm really concerned about," he said. "We have a very special bond and it's hardest on him when I'm away. When he's here, it's great because he gets to be in the clubhouse. But when he's home (in Colorado), I don't get to watch his [Little League] games. I've seen him play twice in three years and part of the joy of being a parent is watching your kids play."
Huson, though, figures to travel extensively in his next career. And there's little doubt what that will be.
"Jeff will manage in the majors," Baylor said.
It figures. Huson has a baseball IQ approaching 200. When he stepped to the plate in the fourth inning Monday against St. Louis, there were two outs with runners at second and third. Pitcher Jon Lieber was on deck.
Andy Benes pitched around Huson and fell behind 3-1. Then he threw a fastball away, and Huson sliced it to left for a two-run double.
"I knew I had to expand the zone," Huson explained. "I figured they'd pitch me carefully because they know I'm not a threat to take them deep."
But they weren't careful enough.
Huson's other managerial assets?
He has a terrific sense of humor. When a reporter began rattling off information about his hitting streak, Huson put his fingers in his ears, smiled and said: "I can't hear you."
When someone alerted the Cubs to Huson's 36th birthday Tuesday, Huson added this note to the clubhouse greaseboard: "Bring presents."
All he got was a Cubs Pez candy dispenser from Kerry Wood.
Huson also relates well to players. During Sunday's game against Cincinnati, Huson huddled with Sosa in the dugout to talk about how the Cubs' slugger was being pitched.
"I've always respected him as a person and player," Sosa said. "He watched everything and he's always into the game. He will make a great manager."
Don't bet against it.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS APLENTY FOR JOURNEYMAN
He would rather not be known as baseball's Forrest Gump, but Jeff Huson has been witness to many significant events during his 13-year career in the big leagues. Here's a look at his top moments:
- Major league debut: Sept. 2, 1988
- "We were beating the Giants 7-2 in Montreal and I went in [for defense] in the eighth inning on a double-switch. They had a lefty on the mound and I was so nervous, I remember thinking, `Man, I don't want to get up there.' I struck out, but that's OK. I wasn't drafted out of college and no one expected me to make it."
- Nolan Ryan's sixth no-hitter: June 11, 1990
- "I was playing shortstop and with one out in the ninth inning, Rickey Henderson hit a slow roller. I came in, scooped it and threw on the run to get him by a step. I ended up by the pitcher's mound and when I tossed the ball back to Nolan, he said, `Nice play, Huey.' And I said, `Thanks.' As I was going back to short, the only thing I could think was, `Oh, God, don't let them hit the next ball to me.' That's when the magnitude of it all hit me."
- Cal Ripken's 2,131st consecutive game: Sept. 6, 1995
- "When Cal took his uniform off and handed it to his kids, I glanced around the dugout and saw grown men with tears in their eyes. When I see pictures from that night, I still get goosebumps."
- Nolan Ryan's seventh no-hitter: May 1, 1991
- "I remember jogging off the field after the second inning. Steve Buechele and I looked at each other, and I don't who said it, but the general consensus was that [the Blue Jays] had no chance. We knew after two innings. It was a man against boys. Toronto had a good team. It wasn't their fault."
- Nolan Ryan's 300th victory: July 30, 1990
- "He had tried for it at home against the Yankees and gotten shellacked. The media attention and build-up to the 300th were more than I'd ever seen anywhere. Julio Franco hit a bases-loaded triple and we ended up winning 11-3."
Utility man Huson knows how to land on his feet
August 11, 2000
BY MIKE KILEY STAFF REPORTER, Chicago Sun-Times
Jeff Huson has spent a lifetime on the final year of his contract. Now he is wondering when it will be the final year of his career.
But the utility infielder, who turns 36 Tuesday, certainly made a contract push on the just-completed trip to San Diego and Los Angeles. Huson turned a rare three starts in the last seven games into seven hits, a walk and a sacrifice bunt. That included a career-best four-hit game.
With third basemen Willie Greene and Jose Nieves both struggling, he may see more playing time.
Huson knows he isn't a priority on the Cubs' to-do list for 2001. But unless they are ready to put his job in the hands of younger backup players such as Nieves or Chad Meyers, the Cubs might want to reassess his worth in an underrated role.
"I don't think people understand how difficult it is," he said. "You sit there for 10 days or whatever and they think it's no big deal that you have to go up there and hit.
"It comes with experience. You always have to be prepared. Pregame and batting practice, you have to sometimes take that as your game. It does get frustrating.
"A couple times I have gone in to [manager Don Baylor] and said, `Am I going to be here next week?' He says, `Oh, yeah,' and that helps, too, that he has confidence. Some managers would be like, `Quit bothering me with that.' I do have a great relationship with Don in that regard. Don is part of the reason why I'm here."
Huson seldom stays in one spot long. Not even hitting .262 last year for Anaheim got him a job in 2000 with the Angels.
"I thought this year I would be going back to Anaheim after the year I had there last year," he said. "It just didn't happen. So I never prepare for more than six months.
"Short of playing in the playoffs, I have seen it all and done it all. I've been a starter and a utility guy, I've been released and traded, you name it. Everything has happened to me, so whatever you are going to do with me won't surprise me."
10 August, 2000
Four-closure of the week
When a guy has spent parts of 11 seasons in the big leagues, you would think he wouldn't have much left he hadn't done -- except maybe getting traded for himself.
But that brings us to the case of one of Week in Review's favorite players, Cubs utility humorist Jeff Huson. After 11 seasons, 2,000 visits to home plate and paychecks mailed to him from eight different teams, Huson finally achieved an all-time career first last Saturday in San Diego. He got four hits in a game -- for the first time in 11 years.
Well, that may be no big deal to Tony Gwynn -- possibly because he's done it 45 times. But it was a great night in the life of Jeff Huson, even if it's safe to say that his four-hit night wouldn't have reminded anybody of, say, Mark Whiten's four-hit night. "Uh, I don't think all four of my hits put together would have made it out of the park," Huson said, humbly -- not to mention accurately.
There was a blooper to left. Then came his one line drive in the bunch. Hit No. 3 was a thunker off the end of the bat that got through the infield. And that set up the grand finale -- a chopper off the plate "that acted like a great bunt."
And the tale of the tape on that one -- the most historic hit of Huson's career? "I'd say five feet," he said. "I haven't actually seen the footage of it, though."
Huson was, in fact, aware that this was the first four-hit game of his career. But the only reason he was aware of it was that the Padres put it on the scoreboard as he came up for the fourth time. Thanks a lot, men.
"You know, when you're only hitting .190 and you get three hits and you haven't had many at-bats, you know your average is going to go up," Huson said. "So I took a peek. And it was up there."
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Huson was only 20 hits shy of passing Angels catcher Matt Walbeck as the active player with the most career hits without a four-hit game. So now Walbeck (who had 443, through Thursday) retains that record, with runner-up Phil Nevin (405) now closing in fast.
Yet, stunningly, this big event wasn't greeted with much pandemonium in Southern California. But Huson could see that coming, because he'd already lived through the dubious honor of following Sammy Sosa in batting practice.
"Sammy would hit all these balls out -- boom, boom, boom -- and everybody would be cheering," Huson said. "Then I'd come up, and it was like they were at the opera or something."
So as Sosa shots kept disappearing into the California hills, Huson turned to manager Don Baylor and said: "I can't follow that."
"So he said, 'Just do what you can do,' " Huson reported. "And that's what I did. I doinked four balls in there."
7 August, 2000
Big WeekendSan Diego's Qualcomm Stadium (Jack Murphy Field) was good to Jeff Huson, who went 5-8 in the three games in which he appeared, raising his average from the sub-Mendoza .197 to a respectable .246. The biggest game came on Saturday, when he started and went 4-5. Huson started Sunday's game at third base and went 1-2 with a walk and a sacrifice bunt.
6 August, 2000
Jeff Huson started at second base and surprised with a career-high four hits, all singles and not all rockets.
"Three of my hits today probably didn't make it all the way to the outfield," Huson said. "One of those things where I hit them where they ain't."
15 July, 2000
BY MIKE KILEY STAFF REPORTER
HAIRY SITUATION: Utilityman Jeff Huson, the ultimate team player, had a pithy reply when asked why he wasn't joining Mark Grace, Brant Brown, Jeff Reed and Kerry Wood in getting his head shaved.
"I won't do it, because if I get traded or released in the next week, I don't want to look like a fool," Huson quipped.
10, July, 2000
While Sammy Sosa and Henry Rodriguez hit homers in each of the last two games to help the Cubs win, it was the savvy of pinch hitter Jeff Huson and Eric Young that proved the Sox' undoing in the finale. After right fielder Magglio Ordonez made the misjudgment of throwing high to third base with none out and no chance to gun down Damon Buford, Huson hustled to reach second on his single. That put the squeeze on a Sox club winning 6-5 in the sixth inning. Eric Young flashed a sign to third-base coach Gene Glynn that he could decide to lay down a safety squeeze bunt. That's what Young did, knocking in Buford with his bunt to the first-base side and pushing Huson to third so he could score on Mark Grace's sacrifice fly. Sosa followed with his 23rd homer for two more runs, but manager Don Baylor couldn't say enough about Young and Huson. This kind of aggressive and intelligent baseball has been missing too often with the Cubs.
"EY is on his own a lot," Baylor said. "It didn't come from the bench. Huson's base hit and his baserunning got us to that situation..
16 May, 2000
Mail call: Jeff Huson doesn't pretend to have all the answers. But he will have to come up with some starting this week.
Huson has agreed to a deal with The Sporting News to answer readers' questions via e-mail. According to the magazine's Web site, "Our only request is that you keep your questions focused on strategies, `inside the game' topics and analysis. In other words, don't ask how cool Sammy Sosa is."
Huson made sure that line was included.
"I want baseball questions," he said. "Not, `What's so-and-so like?'"
Huson, 35, who is recovering from a strained rib-cage muscle, wants to stay in baseball when his playing days end.
"That's part of the reason I decided to do this, to get an idea of something else out there," he said. "If I enjoy doing it, I'll never be a baseball beat writer, but... especially with The Sporting News being bought by Steve Ballmer from Microsoft, you never know what the possibilities might be."
Check out his answers here!
25 April
Beyond the warning track in center field of Houston's new Enron Field is a 10-foot patch of grass with a 30-degree slope with a flagpole near the top of the slope, which would come into play on a mammoth drive to center. It is said to have been inspired by the steep outfield incline at Cincinnati's Crosley Field.
Jeff's reaction?
"There are a lot of novel things here," Huson said. "But that's not novel; that's stupid. That's like putting chairs on a basketball court and saying, `Play around them,'" Huson said.
7 April
Nine innings over Tokyo
Opening Day in Japan may not be conveniently located. And if Opening Day in Japan means 5 a.m. start times on the East Coast, it may lead to Katie Couric doing play-by-play. But Opening Day in Japan is a whole 'nother world. So here, with a full report, is our travel correspondent, Cubs utility spokesman Jeff Huson.
The Trip: It was just another nice, leisurely, 23-hour, 13,000-air-mile day for the Cubs. They were up at 4 a.m., Arizona time, on Friday, March 24 and reported to the ballpark at 5:45 a.m. They then bused to the airport, flew to San Francisco, had a two-hour layover, then flew 12 more hours to Japan. That was followed by a 2, 50-mile bus ride through classic Saturday gridlock to get to their hotel in Tokyo, 23 hours after they awoke.
Then came the final challenge: They were told not to go to sleep for another three hours -- making this the first reverse curfew in baseball history.
"That's the first time," Huson said, "that I ever heard that: 'OK, boys. STAY UP.' "
The Perks: This important travel note: In answer to your most pressing question, yes, these men did get frequent-flier miles. They flew commercial. So they're now halfway to a free flight to Des Moines.
The Cinema: If you're going to fly 13,000 miles to play baseball, you'd better be entertained. And Huson reports the Cubs got three movies on their journey. So now, he gets to make his film-critic debut by rating them, on a scale of 25 thumbs up:
- "Mystery, Alaska" -- "It was a hockey movie, and I like hockey. So I'll give it 18 thumbs up."
- "Anywhere But Here" -- "Nah, that was a chick flick. So I only give that one 10 thumbs up."
- "Can't Remember the Title" -- This exciting motion picture was about a guy who posed as a cop. And despite liking the movie and seeing it both on the trip to Japan and the trip back, Huson couldn't recall the name of it. So he was forced to invoke a three-thumb penalty. "I'd like to give it 18 thumbs up. But I can't give it an 18 if I can't remember the name. So I guess it's only a 15."
The Reception: -- After an off-day workout on Sunday, March 26, to get the cobwebs out, the Cubs and Mets were invited to a big-time reception, featuring many important Japanese dignitaries.
"My neck got sore from bowing because I had to bow so much," Huson said. "I'm not used to that, you know. I don't get many curtain calls."
The Exhibition Games: The highlight of the two exhibition games Monday and Tuesday was the trip back from Saitama-ken after a game against the Seibu Lions on Tuesday.
The Cubs took a bus out there and, like all Japanese bus rides, that took over two hours. So after the game, they were advised that if they took a train and subway back to Tokyo, it would take only about an hour.
Virtually the entire team volunteered. So "we all walked out of the stadium to the train station," Huson reported. "And everybody knew it was us. So people were taking our pictures and being very polite. Then the doors of the train opened, and it was like sharks on fish. It was wall-to-wall people. You couldn't have slipped a piece of paper in between us."
If you're monitoring Japanese public-transit efficiency at home, you'llbe happy to know this trip took 65 minutes. Guides accompanied the Cubs to make sure they got on the proper trains and didn't take any unexpected detours to, say, the Philippines.
The International Incident: Huson would have seemed a far less likely candidate to cause an international incident than Rickey Henderson. But Huson managed to cause one, anyway, when Don Baylor inadvertently forgot to write his name on the lineup card.
As you may have heard someplace, that caused a big-time tiff between Baylor and Bobby Valentine, after Valentine burst out of the dugout to protest the first game of the season -- with the Mets one strike away from losing.
Huson had just gone into the game at shortstop. So as soon as Valentine came out, he thought: "This has to involve me, somehow, some way, because I was the only guy who just went in."
After the game ended, he walked in to shake hands, reached Baylor and asked: "What was that about?" Baylor told him, jokingly: "It's all your fault." It wasn't actually, of course. But the Baylor-Valentine fireworks erupted for the rest of the trip. And Huson will always be remembered -- by us, anyway -- as an international troublemaker.
"They'll probably never let me go anywhere again," he said. "I think I had to turn my passport in when I got back in the country."
The Reception (part 2): Before the second game, the Cubs were invited to a bash at the U.S. embassy, which Huson described as an awesome building with "a cool library." And what was in that library?
"I didn't see any baseball books," he said. "But I did see a book about Idaho. Don't ask me what that was about."
The Home Game: The second game of the season was considered the Cubs' first home game at a ballpark other than Wrigley Field since 1915. But no attempts were made to make the Tokyo Dome look more like Wrigley so they could feel more at home.
"There were no Sosa-meters, no fake ivy, anything like that," Huson said. "They did put fake grass in, though."
The Economy: Now, an up-to-the-minute Japanese cost-of-living report: The cost of breakfast ("I like to say it in yen, because it makes it sound so much better"): two eggs, toast, bacon and coffee for Huson and his wife, Wendy: 6,500 yen (about $65). "At the Waffle House, that would be $3.99," he said. The cost of lunch: two chicken sandwiches, with cokes and fries: 9,800 yen ($98). The cost of dinner: two steaks, baked potatoes and bottles of beer: 27,600 yen ($276). "When the bill came and I saw that '27,600,' I was saying please have a yen sign, not a dollar sign," Huson reminisced.
The Trip Home: The most spectacular aspect of the journey back to Chicago, aside from the fact United showed the same three movies the team had already seen on the way to Japan, was that, through the miracle of time zones, the Cubs arrived 15 minutes before they left. They departed their hotel at 3:15 p.m., Tokyo time. They flew for 11 hours. And they still managed to land in Chicago at 3 p.m. the same day.
"I would have loved to have known what happened in the stock market in those 15 minutes," Huson said. "I'd have bought all the options."
30 March, 2000
Updates from Japan! While we at the Official Jeff Huson HomePage knew that Jeff Huson had made the Cubs' Opening Day roster, Mets' manager Bobby Valentine didn't. In the historic first-ever Opening Day played outside of North America, the biggest concern was not a language barrier but a scorecard mistake involving none other than Jeff Huson. When Jeff was inserted late in the game as a defensive substitution, Valentine checked his scorecard and saw that Huson was not on the lineup card prepared by Don Baylor. Valentine wondered if perhaps Huson was not a member of the team and therefore an illegal substitution. It turns out that Baylor had accidentally written catcher Jeff Reed's name twice and left Huson off the card. Valentine decided to drop the protest. In other events in Japan, Sammy Sosa, Joe Girardi, and Jeff Huson visited the American embassy in Tokyo before the game.
24 March, 2000
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Jeff Huson has been designated a member of the Cubs' Opening Day roster. The Cubs open the season March 30th against the New York Mets. The game will be played in Tokyo's "Big Egg" (The Tokyo Dome).
From the Chicago Tribune, some Jeff Huson quotes on the Cubs' trip to Japan:
- "I'm looking forward to it," infielder Jeff Huson said. "I really am. How many times do you get to go to a foreign country all expenses paid? And now I don't have to worry about taking my wife on a vacation this winter."
- "Seeing how their crowds react, that's going to be the highlight for me," Huson said. "During the game, I heard they show placards and have horns going. That's going to be the fun part."
15 March, 2000
Chicago Tribune
When shortstop Jose Nieves made a running catch in foul territory down the left-field line today, he strained his right groin and had to hobble off the field.
Baylor said Nieves, who was on the verge of locking up a spot as a utility infielder, is now a "long shot" to make the Opening Day roster. "Groins usually take anywhere from two weeks to a month," Baylor said. "You can't play around with those things. We have to give him the proper rest and treatment."
That news further solidifies Jeff Huson's chances of making the team. Assuming the Cubs take Willie Greene as the backup third baseman, the final roster spot is likely to be a tossup among catcher Jose Molina, infielder Chad Meyers and catcher/third baseman Alan Zinter.
Chicago Sun-Times
Baylor said he was leaning toward keeping Nieves and Jeff Huson as his two extra infielders, then deciding between third catcher Jose Molina and backup third baseman Willie Greene.
With Nieves' injury, Greene might stick, and general manager Ed Lynch will have to scour the waiver wire for help. Baylor said Chad Meyers probably isn't an option as an extra infielder after having "a rough spring."
"To me it was Nieves and Huson; those two guys have shown the most all spring if you are fair," Baylor said. "They caught the ball, made the plays, didn't kick balls around. Willie has one spot, and that's third base."
14 March, 2000
Chicago Tribune
If the Cubs keep three catchers and Willie Greene continues to progress at third base, the final roster spot will likely come down to middle infielders Jeff Huson and Jose Nieves.
Chicago Sun-Times
MESA, Ariz.--The squeeze play is on. Cubs manager Don Baylor is pondering whether to keep Jose Molina as his third catcher and not take either Willie Greene or Jose Nieves as an extra infielder.
Jeff Huson likely has made the club as a utility player who can handle second base, shortstop and third base. Nieves could rate an edge over Greene because he is a right-handed hitter on a bench where most of the candidates swing left-handed.
"This week would be a real good week for guys to have a good week," Baylor said. "If somebody gets hot the last 10 days here, you see different things."
12 March, 2000
Life as a 25th man
BY MIKE KILEY STAFF REPORTER
MESA, Ariz.--Manager Don Baylor has cut utility infielder Jeff Huson before, releasing him from the Colorado Rockies three springs ago. So why would Huson phone Baylor this winter and reunite with him this spring with the Cubs?
"He is a very honest man, and that is something we don't have in this game very much," Huson said of Baylor. "A lot of people tell you what they think you want to hear, but Don will tell you straight out. I'm a grown man. I can accept the truth."
Huson, 35, trusts Baylor so much that he probably would have quit playing had Baylor told him he was washed up in 1997. He now seems likely to stick with Baylor this season and be a backup everywhere except pitcher and catcher, the only spots he hasn't played in the major leagues.
When the Cubs traded Manny Alexander to the Boston Red Sox for center fielder Damon Buford during the off-season, that left a vacancy at utility infielder that Huson is expected to fill.
"In '97, Colorado told me they were going to take someone else and said, 'We can release and pay you, or you can accept an assignment to the minors,' " Huson said. "Before I answered, I went into Don's office and said, `I need your honest opinion here. You need to tell me if I can still play. If I can't play, please tell me, and I'll move on. I don't have a problem with that.'"
Baylor told the player he calls "Huey" to stay with it.
"I wish more guys would do that because I'll be as honest as I can," Baylor said. "Somebody else just beat him out of a job."
With Baylor's support, Huson went to Class AAA Colorado Springs. He was traded two weeks later to the Milwaukee Brewers, for whom he hit .203 in 84 games. In 1998, Huson was batting .163 through the first half of the season before the Seattle Mariners released him.
Last season, Huson spent his first full season in the big leagues since he hit .240 for the 1992 Texas Rangers. His .262 average in 97 games with the Anaheim Angels assured him of a longer career, which is important with him on the verge of a vested pension that comes with 10 major-league seasons. Huson has eight years, 163 days of service time.
"You are always trying to sell certain things to players," Baylor said. "Get 10 years in the majors, and you have a nice pension."
So while Huson truthfully is a fringe player, Baylor will try to squeeze the last ounce of talent out of a player he says "can get down and dirty."
Huson broke into the majors as a shortstop, but he is proud of the fact that he has committed only three errors in more than 200 games at second base. The Angels used him at every infield position and in left field last season.
"Every year, you sit here and go, `Yeah, I wouldn't mind something a little more stable,' " he said. "But if I wasn't playing, I would stay in baseball somehow. I'm not sure if that's any more stable."
Huson recently thanked Cubs reserve outfielder Glenallen Hill for helping him understand when they were Mariners teammates that sometimes taking five or six pitches in an at-bat can benefit the team.
"I wasn't playing a whole lot in Seattle and was getting frustrated," Huson said. "One day, [Hill] told me a good at-bat might be seeing five or six pitches. It took me a minute to realize that's good advice because the next guy has seen pitches, maybe the pitcher worked harder and it could make a difference two or three hitters down the road.
"But still, the bottom line is, `What's he hitting?' Being in this role, you realize you aren't going to get all the opportunities that other guys are. You have to be happy with the little things.
"I'm not sure you ever totally accept [not being a starter] because everybody has pride. But what's kept me around for as long as I have is to know teams need role players to be successful.
"I know my role, and a manager doesn't have to worry about me as far as not being prepared or complaining. So if a manager only has to worry about 24 guys and not 25, that helps him out.
"This is my 15th spring, so I must be doing something right."
6 March, 2000HUSON HAS FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES
By Teddy Greenstein
Jeff Huson owes a lot to Cubs manager Don Baylor.
"He's the reason I've played the last three years," said Huson, who is competing for a job as a Cubs utility infielder.
Huson credited Baylor for talking him out of retirement after he was cut by Colorado in 1997.
A dejected Huson remembers asking Baylor, then the Rockies' manager, this simple question: "Can I still play?"
Baylor answered in the affirmative.
"He gave me an honest opinion, which is something you don't get too often in this business," Huson said. "I admire the man for that."
Baylor gave Huson another dose of honesty in the off-season when Huson was looking for a job.
Baylor encouraged him to sign with the Cubs.
"He's a professional," Baylor said. "He never complains and he never asks when he's going to get at-bats."
Huson, who had a two-run double Sunday in the Cubs' 8-7 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, hit a career-high .262 with Anaheim last season.
He saw action in 97 games at five different positions, including 41 at second base.
"You always want to have versatile guys like that," Baylor said. "He came to me the other day and said, `Don't forget, I play the outfield too.'"
22 February, 2000By Scott Merkin
Cubs fans might not remember Jeff Huson, but Huson certainly remembers the Cubs./
When he was a youngster, no more than six or seven years old, his father, Kent, would take Huson to exhibition games in Scottsdale. His memories of Glen Beckert and Ron Santo stayed with him, hoping some day to wear the same uniform.
There were also the trips to Wrigley Field as an opposing player, one in particular that stands out during 1989. Huson was in his second major league season in Montreal and had been called up into a National League East battle between the Cubs and the Expos.
His team trailed by one with two outs in the ninth, when he entered into the game as a pinch-runner. He didn't last long.
Mitch Williams didn't need to throw a pitch to pick up the save. He stepped off the mound, fired over to Lloyd McClendon, who was off the base at first, and picked off a stunned Huson in a play typifying that Cubs' magical season.
"That's not one of my fondest memories, but it certainly is right up there in terms of Wrigley Field," said Huson with a laugh. "I believe it's every kid's dream to play for the Cubs, and mine was no different."
Huson will have some say in whether his dream comes true out of spring training, but so will manager Don Baylor and general manager Ed Lynch. The 35-year-old, non-roster invitee has played every position except pitcher and catcher in his 11-year big league career, but will mainly be competing with Chad Meyers and Jose Nieves for the extra infielder spot.
The experience advantage goes to Huson, while youth is on the side of his competition.
"I'm at the point in my career where I don't think about the other guys or say to myself, 'I have to do this or that,'" Huson said. "Those two guys (Meyers and Nieves) are on the young end and I'm on the old end, but we all do things different.
"You just don't know what direction they are going to go. I don't get caught up in it anymore. I used to but not at this point."
More than a lifelong dream brought Huson to Cubs camp. He had spent some time with Baylor during Colorado's spring training three years ago, before being traded to Milwaukee and enjoyed working with Baylor.
When Huson heard Baylor was hired by the Cubs, he decided to give him a call.
"I called him when I was trying to decide what would be the best fit for me, and it just seemed this might be it," Huson said.
Huson was born in Scottsdale and his parents still live in Sedona. His father, Kent, was part of a local group called the Charros that had a hand in bringing the Cubs' spring training camp to Arizona. It only seems natural Huson would some day become a Cub.
To help his cause a little more, Huson got into great shape before spring training. He was even prepared for a spring training staple known as the 7-minute mile, getting his time down to 5:40, only to have Baylor tell him the Cubs weren't running it.
Nonetheless, it has made the Cubs' taxing spring training easier to handle.
"Mark Grace and I were talking about how this is as hard of a camp early as we have been to, as far as running and conditioning," Said Huson, now in his 15th big league camp. "There's not a lot of standing around.
"Don is trying to stress for us to prepare professionally and do the job. If we fail later, it won't be for lack of preparation."
14 January, 2000
Jeff Huson has signed a minor league contract with the Chicago Cubs for the 2000 season and has been invited by the Cubs to attend Spring Training in Mesa, Arizona. Huson, 35, has spent parts of 11 seasons in the majors with six teams. He hit .262 in 97 games as a utility player with Anaheim last year, raising his career average to .235 in 757 major league games with eight homers and 139 RBIs.
Jeff is looking forward to Spring Training and expects this to be a good arrangement for him.
Home | Why Jeff? | Photo Gallery | News | Media Coverage | Statistics | Links | College Bios
Ask Jeff | Huson Humor | Slogan Contest | Site Award
edijkelly@aol.com