Jeff Jackson’s first-round draft story a cautionary baseball tale – Chicago Tribune
Everywhere Jeff Jackson went in Chicago after his unfulfilling baseball career ended, he felt eyes following him.
So did the questions.
Why did the Gatorade National Player of the Year out of Simeon, drafted fourth overall in 1989, never play higher than Double A during a nine-year career spanning 10 teams? What went wrong in the Phillies organization? What happened to his $180,000 signing bonus?
“It got to the point that everywhere I would go people knew who I was and it turned into an interview,” Jackson said over the phone from Los Angeles. “That’s not a situation you want to be reminded of on a regular basis. There are only so many times you can talk about not making it. I had to leave.”
If his name fails to ring a bell when you hear it Thursday associated with the amateur baseball draft — Louisville slugger Corey Ray of Simeon likely will become Chicago’s first player since Jackson to go in the top 10 — that means Jackson’s plan worked. That means moving to California 14 years ago to “live a regular life” achieved the obscurity Jackson would have found elusive in his hometown.
That doesn’t mean Jackson has gotten over being one of the biggest busts in the history of the baseball draft.
“To be honest, I’m still picking up the pieces,” said Jackson, 44, who recently launched First Round Sports and Entertainment Agency. “When people play professional sports, there’s really no preparation for when it’s over. The transformation back to the real world is tough — especially when you’re in the public eye. That’s one of the reasons I got out of Chicago when I was done.”
Jackson left home the first time as a naive 17-year-old thinking pro baseball would be as easy as he made it look hitting .512 his senior year at Simeon. But Jackson struggled mightily adjusting to wood bats at the Phillies’ Rookie League team in Martinsville, Va., where not having a driver’s license contributed to the teenager’s isolation. The brash prospect who made headlines on draft day when he announced he was ready for the big leagues made little headway in the minors. One unforgiving Philly paper dubbed the Chicagoan “Clueless Jeff Jackson.” The lower his batting average dipped, the more pressure Jackson sensed. He missed his mother. He lost his confidence.
“I don’t think I was mature enough for the situation,” Jackson recalled. “I was built up to be the savior and thrust into a new environment. It was overwhelming. One night I’m just playing baseball and the next thing I’m Jeff Jackson, and everybody’s talking about me in newspapers and magazines. At the time, I thought I was handling it well but I was 17. I didn’t.”
Jay Hankins, the Phillies director of scouting when they selected Jackson three spots ahead of future White Sox Hall of Famer Frank Thomas, eventually lost his job in 1992 largely because of that one decision. Over 48 years in baseball, including three decades as a scout, Jackson represents perhaps Hankins’ biggest miss. He recalled the Phillies’ priorities heading into the ’89 draft.
“We had a young first baseman named Ricky Jordan and needed a center fielder,” Hankins, 80, said Wednesday on the phone. “Jeff was a mistake on my part, a big duck in a small pond (in high school). Good kid, a five-tool player, but he just didn’t understand the game of baseball.”
In nine seasons overall, Jackson played in 666 games combining the minors and independent leagues, hitting .234 with 50 home runs in 2,305 career at-bats. The blazing speed that enticed so many scouts never mattered because Jackson couldn’t steal first. After his final game in 1998 for the Pirates‘ Class A affiliate in Lynchburg, Va., Jackson left with too few hits and too many regrets.
“I regret not working harder at my craft,” said Jackson, who is producing a documentary about his doomed baseball career. “When I’m done with this film next year, I want to get into mentoring young kids. Nothing is guaranteed. So work hard, stay focused, stay out of trouble and believe in yourself.”
The positive message echoes what Thomas told Jackson one night in the late 1990s at Walter Payton’s Schaumburg restaurant. Once Jackson introduced himself to the slugger, the two first-round picks enjoyed speculating what might have been if the Phillies had taken Thomas and the Sox had drafted the hometown product — whom they had ranked higher, according to reports.
“We laughed about it,” Jackson said. “Frank offered some good words of support. … He said the roles could have been switched. Who knows? He was a cool guy.”
One day Jackson hopes to meet Ray and lend similar encouragement as someone who can relate to his experience. As someone proud of the distinction, in all likelihood, the native Chicagoans soon will share.
“I find it almost unbelievable that it has been almost 30 years and no one from Chicago ever has been drafted as high as I was,” Jackson said. “It’s good to finally pass the torch and know that inner-city baseball in Chicago is still alive and Corey Ray has proven these kids can play baseball.”
As Jackson also knows, now comes the hard part.
Twitter @DavidHaugh
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