Jimmy Lee McMath (August 10, 1949 – July 20, 2010) was a

professional baseball Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in baseball league, leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world. Mod ...

player. He played part of the 1968 season in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

for the

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...

, primarily as a

left fielder In baseball, a left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder who plays defense in left field. Left field is the area of the outfield to the left of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering system ...

. Listed at , , he batted and threw left-handed. A native of

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...

, McMath was drafted by the Cubs in the second round of the 1967 amateur draft, and immediately was assigned to their

minor league Minor leagues are professional sports leagues which are not regarded as the premier leagues in those sports. Minor league teams tend to play in smaller, less elaborate venues, often competing in smaller cities/markets. This term is used in Nor ...

system with the Caldwell Cubs of the Pioneer League. McMath garnered some attention after hitting a .388 average in 51 games for the

Quincy Cubs The Quincy Cubs were a minor league baseball team located in Quincy, Illinois. The team played in the Midwest League and were an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. Their home stadium was Q Stadium. The franchise lasted from 1965 to 1973, when the Cubs ...

of the

Midwest League The Midwest League is a Minor League Baseball league established in 1947 and based in the Midwestern United States. A Class A league for most of its history, the league was promoted to High-A as part of Major League Baseball's 2021 reorganizat ...

to start 1968. He was promoted to the Double-A

San Antonio Missions The San Antonio Missions are a Minor League Baseball team of the Texas League and the Double-A affiliate of the San Diego Padres. They are located in San Antonio, Texas, and are named for the Spanish missions around which the city was founded. ...

, where he hit .263 in 75 games. Still just 19 years old, he was promoted to the big club in late September, the youngest player in the National League in 1968. He went 2-for-14 for a .143 average and drove in two runs in just six games. Defensively, he played 3 games at left field with 6 put outs. McMath split 1969 between San Antonio and the Triple-A Tacoma Cubs. He returned to Tacoma in 1970, but hit just .213 in 51 games. In 1971, he went backwards through the Cubs system, playing first at San Antonio, where he hit just .212, and then going back down to Quincy. After the season, he was let go, his career over at age 22. Overall, McMath hit .269 with 22

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s in 398 minor league games from 1967 to 1971. McMath died in Meadville, Mississippi, at the age of 60.

Sources

Obituary
{{DEFAULTSORT:McMath, Jimmy 1949 births 2010 deaths African-American baseball players Major League Baseball left fielders Chicago Cubs players Caldwell Cubs players Quincy Cubs players San Antonio Missions players Tacoma Cubs players Baseball players from Alabama Sportspeople from Tuscaloosa, Alabama 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American sportspeople Arizona Instructional League Cubs players