Baseball Way Back: A moon man's memorable landings in Chicago

Major league catcher and baseball broadcaster Joe Garagiola used to say baseball is a funny game.

But Garagiola probably wasn't laughing when someone lit a firecracker at his feet during his television interview with the Phillies' Dick Allen before a 1975 game against the Cardinals.

It probably came as no surprise that the perpetrator was Allen's teammate Jay Johnstone.

As a hitter over his 20-year career, Johnstone, who passed away Sept. 26, could occasionally generate fireworks with his bat, as indicated by his 102 career homers.

But he was better known for his employment of explosives in the clubhouse, where he would routinely set off firecrackers.

Chemistry is a key element of winning baseball, and Johnstone was a chemical agent whose peculiar properties of wackiness were part of a winning formula for several teams, most notably the 1981 Dodgers.

Johnstone's brand of zaniness belongs to a baseball tradition stretching back to the days when Nick Altrock gained laughs by shadow boxing in the third base coach's box and continuing to today with the Gatorade-immersing antics of the Sox's Yolmer Sanchez.

Johnstone's contribution to the tradition was cataloged by columnist Bob Verdi in 1982, just days after the Dodgers released him and the Cubs picked him up.

The "highlights" included dressing up as a groundskeeper along with Dodgers teammate Jerry Reuss and dragging the infield, wearing shoulder pads during batting practice, and adorning the gloves of teammates who committed errors with bandages and gauze pads.

Verdi quoted Dodgers Manager Tommy Lasorda: "I must have done something wrong, because God gave me Jay Johnstone."

One spring training, Johnstone sneaked into Lasorda's hotel room and removed the mouthpiece from the skipper's telephone. The next morning, when leaving for the ballpark, Lasorda tried to open the room's door, but it wouldn't budge. It seems Johnstone had tied a rope from the outside knob to a palm tree. When he tried to telephone for help, the missing mouthpiece impeded the attempt. He was finally extricated after someone heard his shouts from the patio.

Antics aside, Johnstone, although never a great player, also produced.

With Philadelphia in 1976, he finished second in the NL in doubles with 38, four behind doubles champ Pete Rose.

In the 1981 World Series, Johnstone's two-run pinch-hit homer in the bottom of the 6th in Game 4 against the Yankees helped lift the Dodgers, who were trailing 6-3, to an 8-7 win over the Bronx Bombers.

Johnstone's daffy destiny was foreshadowed by his first roommate, Angels teammate Jimmy Piersall, who was sane and "had the papers to prove it."

But Piersall's intensity also rubbed off on his roommate. Johnstone recalled Piersall telling him, "Never be satisfied. If you go four for four then there was probably a good play you should have made in the outfield or an extra base you should have taken."

In Anaheim, Johnston earned the nickname "Moon Man." In 1981, Johnstone told columnist Jim Murray he was out with another roommate one night well past curfew. When they returned to their hotel, Johnstone, who had forgotten his key and didn't want to be discovered, decided to jimmy the window.

He asked his partner in crime to "stand out of the way, you're standing in my moonlight."

Prior to the 1971 season, the White Sox acquired Johnstone along with pitcher Tom Bradley and catcher Tom Egan from the Angels in exchange for beloved outfielder Ken Berry, less beloved infielder Syd O'Brien, and pitcher Billy Wynne, who rarely lived up to the sound of his last name.

At the time, Johnstone boasted, "Why should I worry about Ken Berry. I can outhit him, outrun him and outthrow him."

That, of course, was debatable, but Johnstone had a decent year, mainly in center field, clubbing 16 homers and helping the team with such efforts as a two-homer game in a 9-1 win over Cleveland on Aug. 20, 1971 to give the Sox their sixth win in a row.

In 1972, Johnstone's numbers sharply declined, and he alienated Sox management due to his role as a player representative during that year's brief strike. He was released on March 7, 1973.

Johnstone returned to Chicago in 1982, once again as part of a rebuild, this time on the North Side.

Manager Lee Elia told Verdi, "He's perfect for this group. Keeps everybody loose."

The article mentioned that Johnstone was asked to be a guest host for Channel 7 sports. "The fact that the game was still in progress never deterred him. He grabbed teammate Lee Smith and did his bit live from the left-field stands."

His antics off the field definitely helped improve morale. In 1983 in Pittsburgh, in an effort to boost teammate Ron Cey's spirits, he dressed up a mannequin in Cey's uniform.

He told writer Robert Markus, "Then I gave a Knute Rockne speech to it and had everybody rolling on the floor."

His best year with the Cubs was 1982, when he batted .249 in 269 at-bats, with 10 homers and 43 RBI. He started 77 games in the outfield and came to the plate 18 times as a pinch hitter.

On July 19, he singled home the tying run in the 10th inning and then scored the winner on a pinch single by Jerry Morales in a 6-5 win over the Astros at Wrigley Field.

He hit two homers against his old Phillies teammates on Aug. 8, 1982.

The next year, on June 9, 1983, Johnstone hit his 100th career homer off Ed Lynch of the New York Mets.

Johnstone's role receded further into the background during the magical 1984 season, although he scored a run in a dramatic 12-11 extra-inning victory over the Cardinals on June 23. That game will forever be known as "the Ryne Sandberg game," because of Sandberg's five hits, seven RBI and his two homers off Bruce Sutter.

On September 9, 1984, Johnstone was released to make room for another former Dodger, Davey Lopes, who was the player to be named later in the Chuck Rainey deal with Oakland.

In 1988, Johnstone inadvertently offered his epitaph with five guidelines for becoming the perfect prankster. They were: "Know the personality of the guy you're about to stick"; "Don't get caught"; "Blame someone else"; "Deny. Always"; and "Never be around after the trick is perpetrated."