Johnnie Lee LeMaster (born June 19, 1954) is a former

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 (A ...

infielder An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field. Standard arrangement of positions In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles. ...

. He played for four teams over a 12 year (– and ) MLB career, including 10 seasons with the

San Francisco Giants The San Francisco Giants are an American professional baseball team based in San Francisco, California. The Giants compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Founded in 1883 as the New Yo ...

. He batted and threw right-handed.

Career

On September 2, 1975, LeMaster became the third player in major league history to hit an

inside-the-park home run In baseball, an inside-the-park home run is a play where a batter hits a home run without hitting the ball out of the field of play. It is also known as an "inside-the-parker", "in-the-park home run", or "in-the-park homer". Discussion To score ...

in his first at bat, during a 7–3 win over the Dodgers. LeMaster hit only 21 home runs during the rest of his career (3,191 at bats). Johnnie-lemaster pittsburgh 09-21-1985

LeMaster is remembered for a game in July 1979, when he took the field wearing the phrase on his back that Giants fans often welcomed him with; in place of his last name was the word "BOO". In 1983, LeMaster amassed over 100 hits for the only time in his career, batting .240 and finishing seventh in the National League with 39 stolen bases while finishing third in the National League with 19 times caught stealing. During the 1985 season, he played for three teams: the

, the

Cleveland Indians The Cleveland Guardians are an American professional baseball team based in Cleveland. The Guardians compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League Central, Central division. Since , they have ...

, and the

Pittsburgh Pirates The Pittsburgh Pirates are an American professional baseball team based in Pittsburgh. The Pirates compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Founded as part of the American Associati ...

; all three teams ended up in last place in their respective divisions. After retirement, in 1988, he played one season with the Senior Professional Baseball Association, on the Fort Myers Sun Sox. LeMaster was a career .222 hitter with 22 home runs and 229

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the b ...

in 1039 games.

Personal

LeMaster resides in

Paintsville, Kentucky Paintsville () is a home rule-class city along Paint Creek in Johnson County, Kentucky, in the United States. It is the seat of its county. The population was 3,459 during the 2010 U.S. Census. History A Paint Lick Station was referred to in ...

. He is a devout Christian. After his professional baseball career, Johnnie ran Johnnie LeMaster's Sports Center, an athletic store in Paintsville. The store has since been bought and replaced by

Hibbett Sports Hibbett Sports, Inc. is an American publicly traded holding company for Hibbett Sporting Goods, a full line sporting goods retailer headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. As of January 29, 2022, the company operated approximately 1,096 retail st ...

. LeMaster is a distant cousin of Frank LeMaster, who played football for the University of Kentucky and the Philadelphia Eagles. From 2016 through his 2019 resignation, LeMaster coached baseball at Paul G. Blazer High School in Ashland,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

References

External links

Photo of Lemaster wearing the 'Boo' jersey

UniWatchBlog.com article about LeMaster 2008.01.31
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lemaster, Johnnie 1954 births Cleveland Indians players Living people Baseball players from Ohio Major League Baseball shortstops Oakland Athletics players Pittsburgh Pirates players San Francisco Giants players People from Portsmouth, Ohio Paintsville High School alumni Hawaii Islanders players Indianapolis Indians players Phoenix Giants players Great Falls Giants players Decatur Commodores players Fresno Giants players Tacoma Tigers players