gold standard

JaCoby Jones, an exceptional athlete, runs down a lot of balls in center field for Detroit. Check out the catch the former Richton High star made Saturday, taking a home run away from a Washington batter. Though he hasn’t been as good with the glove this year (.974 fielding percentage, four errors in 65 games), Jones actually topped all major league outfielders in 2018 with 21 Defensive Runs Saved. In 120 games and just over 1,000 innings, he made 284 putouts, some of those as a left fielder. He also had eight assists and just one error. As good as he might be, Jones isn’t likely to make longtime Tigers fans forget Chet Lemon. The Jackson native is the gold standard for Tigers center fielders. “The Jet” (aka “Juice”) recorded 509 putouts in center field for Detroit in 1977 to set a major league record, and he had five seasons of 400-plus putouts. Longtime manager Sparky Anderson called him the best center fielder he had ever seen. “(H)e plays each game as if it were the seventh game of the World Series. Chester doesn’t know any other way to play and that’s his greatest asset,” Anderson once said. Lemon, now a youth baseball instructor and coach in Florida, grew up in California, was a first-round draft pick by Oakland in 1972 and played 16 years in the majors, making three All-Star teams and winning a ring with the 1984 Tigers, who coincidentally, were honored at Comerica Park this weekend. He hit .273 career with 215 home runs and 884 RBIs. Jones (.252 this year, .213 career) hasn’t hit like that either.