Jack Billingham

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1969 Topps

John Eugene Billingham

Bats Right, Throws Right
Height 6' 4", Weight 215 lb.

Debut April 11, 1968
Final Game June 20, 1980
Born February 21, 1943 in Orlando, FL USA

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[edit] Biographical Information

Jack Billingham had a major league record of 145-113 and was a key member of the Big Red Machine's pitching staff. He was especially good in World Series play, posting a record of 7-3 with an ERA of 0.36.

Billingham came up originally with the 1968 Los Angeles Dodgers, and was two years older than teammate Don Sutton. Billingham had an excellent rookie year, going 3-0 with 8 saves and a 2.17 ERA, but the Dodgers let him be drafted away by the expansion Montreal Expos in 1969. Montreal then traded him as part of the Rusty Staub deal to the Houston Astros.

After three years with the Astros, Billingham was traded again in another big deal, this time in a trade that brought Joe Morgan to the Reds with Billingham and others, and brought Lee May and others to the Astros.

He spent six years with the Reds, the heart of his career, winning 19 games in both 1973 and 1974. Afterwards he went to the Detroit Tigers where he had two decent seasons in 1978 and 1979 at ages 35 and 36.

The similarity scores method says the most similar pitcher (as of July 2007) is Johnny Podres.

On April 4, 1974, he gave up Hank Aaron's 714th career home run.

Distant cousin of Christy Mathewson and Henry Mathewson.

In 1989, Billingham played for the Orlando Juice of the Senior Professional Baseball Association. He was 0-1 in 6 games.