Randy Jones (baseball)

Jones was born on January 12, 1950, in Fullerton, California. He attended Brea-Olinda High School in Brea, California, where he had an 8–2 win–loss record with a 0.91 earned run average (ERA) and 110 strikeouts as a senior. At Chapman College (now University) in Orange, California, During high school, Jones suffered tendinitis in his pitching arm. From 1969 to 1972 at Chapman, Jones won 27 games, and was named the team's most valuable player each year. In his All-American senior year, Chapman had 38 wins and was the runner-up at the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Far West Regionals. Jones set school records for strikeouts in a season with 155 in 1972, and career strikeouts with 311. ==Professional baseball career==

The San Diego Padres selected Jones in the fifth round of the 1972 Major League Baseball draft. He only had a 3–5 record with Alexandria, but had a 2.91 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 68 innings pitched. He began 1973 in Alexandria, where he had a 8–1 record, 2.01 ERA, three complete games, one shutout and 67 strikeouts in 67 innings. Jones' Double-A pitching coach Warren Hacker suggested Jones work on developing his sinker, which proved successful for Jones. Over the ensuing years, he developed techniques that added to his deceptiveness in throwing velocity and durability as a pitcher. Jones' nickname as a Padre became "Junkman". He started every other game in which he appeared that year (19), and had a 7–6 record, with a 3.16 ERA in his rookie season. In 1974, Jones went 8–22 with a 4.45 ERA. with the Padres scoring one or fewer runs in 12 of those losses. In 1975, Jones was 20–12 and led the National League with a 2.24 ERA, He had 18 complete games in 36 starts, The New York Mets' Seaver finished first in the Cy Young Award voting, receiving 15 first place votes to Jones's seven. Jones felt he lost out due to a lack of exposure to the influential New York media. He was selected to the 1975 NL All-Star team, and finished 10th in NL Most Valuable Player voting. when he survived a car crash, went 22–14 with a 2.74 ERA, and started the All-Star Game against Mark Fidrych. San Diego won just 73 games that season, with Jones being the winning pitcher in almost 30%. and selected him as the left-handed pitcher on their NL All-Star Team for the second consecutive season. Their NL record was broken in 2001 by Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux. At the All-Star break in July 1976, Jones' record was 16–3, a first-half win total that set an NL record which no one has equaled since. Sports Illustrated placed him on their cover with the headline "Threat to win 30. San Diego’s confounding Randy Jones". Jones had only 93 strikeouts, an average of 2.7 per nine innings pitched, but walked even fewer (50), while forcing opponents into 35 double plays. He led the NL with a 1.027 walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) even though he allowed an NL-high 274 hits. During his last start of the 1976 season, he injured a nerve in his pitching arm that required surgery, and he was never quite able to regain his Cy Young form. Post-surgery in 1977, he pitched less than half the number of innings he had pitched a year earlier, and ended up with a 6–12 record and 4.58 ERA. After going 1–8 in 1981, he began the 1982 season at 6–2, before struggling and finishing at 7–10 with a 4.60 ERA. He pitched worse at home, surrendering 70 hits and 39 earned runs in 47 innings at Shea Stadium. The Mets released him after the season with two years remaining on his contract for $750,000. Jones signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but was released before the 1983 season started, thus ending his playing career. ==Coaching==

After retiring from Major League Baseball, Jones coached young pitchers. His most prominent pupil was Barry Zito, who won the 2002 Cy Young Award with the Oakland Athletics. Another pupil, Joe Musgrove, pitched the first no-hitter in Padres history. == Legacy ==

, displayed at Petco Park. Jones finished his career with a win–loss record of and a 3.42 ERA. In 285 starts, he threw 75 complete games, including 19 shutouts. said that Jones threw "a fastball". One of the Padres' first homegrown stars, That year, when he won the Cy Young, the Padres drew an average of 27,400 fans in his 21 home starts, compared to 15,769 in their other home games. In its first six years of existence (1969–1974), the franchise never won more than 63 games and finished each season in last place in the six-team NL West, but then won over 70 games in Jones's two peak years, when they finished fourth in 1975 and fifth in 1976. He is credited with having put the Padres "on the map". He was enshrined by the San Diego Hall of Champions into the Breitbard Hall of Fame in 1996. He was inducted as part of the inaugural class of the San Diego Padres Hall of Fame in 1999. Jones was the subject of a malapropism by Padres broadcaster Jerry Coleman who once said, "On the mound is Randy Jones, the left-hander with the Karl Marx hairdo." Coleman had intended to say Harpo Marx. == Personal life and death ==

Jones married his high school sweetheart Marie ( Stassi), His post-career projects included the Randy Jones Run/Walk that raises money for Home of Guiding Hands, an organization benefiting the developmentally disabled in the San Diego area, with which Jones worked for many years. ==See also==