#716 Jesus Alou

Let’s state the obvious…Member of one of great baseball families of all time, Jesus was one of the three Alou brothers…Jesus was tearing it up in the Giants farm system while siblings Felipe and Matty were on the big club….On 9/10/63 all three went down in order faced Met pitcher Carl Willey in Jesus’ MLB debut…On 9/15 the all played the outfield for two innings in 13-5 slaughter of the Pirates…With a long term prospect of an Alou outfield unlikely (two guys Mays, McCovey) the trio was broken upon Felipe’s trade before 1964 season…Jesus essentially replaces his brother in right field…Jesus becomes a fixture in the out Giant outfield until 1968 getting more playing time than Matty…Selected by Montreal in expansion draft…In convoluted move essentially he was traded to Astros before he donned the Expos tri-colored cap for Rusty Staub….played three years as Houston regular….1972 started a diminished playing role but suffered no decline in his hits-man-ship….Avg actually increased …Also the first player to use the name of Jesus which made some announcers nervous….line drive hitter who could over .290 and was virtually impossible to strike out…liability however was a lack of walks…Won two World championship rings with Oakland…returned to Houston after a two year layoff impressively hitting .324 in 1978….Became a coach the next but still got in some plate appearances....Has work as scout in Dominican Republic since he retired...Career figures:  32 HRs, 377 RBIs, and .280 in 4345 AB’s.