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Yankees: 1978 WS champion Jay Johnstone dies of COVID-19

ByAdam Weinrib|
UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1979: Jay Johnstone #27 of the New York Yankees stands in the dugout during a rain delay of a Major League Baseball game circa 1979. Johnstone played for the Yankees from 1978-79. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1979: Jay Johnstone #27 of the New York Yankees stands in the dugout during a rain delay of a Major League Baseball game circa 1979. Johnstone played for the Yankees from 1978-79. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)

1978 Yankees World Series champion Jay Johnstone passed away on Monday.

It takes a special type of personality to be a middling MLB player for 20 full years. But the way two-time World Series champion Jay Johnstone stepped up in big moments, you never would’ve known the curly-haired outfielder wasn’t among the game’s greats. Luckily, Johnstone made a cameo with the Yankees during those remarkable two decades, and even managed to get a ring out of it.

The ebullient outfielder passed away on Monday at the age of 74, another soul taken needlessly early by complications of COVID-19.

Johnstone, a member of the Yankee family whose tenure in pinstripes lasted well into many an Old-Timers’ Day appearance (after all, he was best in front of a camera and microphone), received a proper tribute from his former team in the wake of the announcement.

Johnstone’s Yankees career lasted only 59 games, spread across the 1978 and ’79 seasons — including a pair of at-bats in the Fall Classic that fateful year.

He spent much of his prominent career as the enemy (in name only), starring for the Dodgers from 1980-1982 and 1985, socking a home run in the ’81 World Series against the Bombers in only three at-bats.

That wasn’t his only postseason moment of glory, though; in the 1976 NLCS for the Phillies, a year in which he player full-time, Johnstone went 7-for-9 with a triple and double, good for a .778 average and .800 OBP.

His pinch-hit heroics weren’t the main agenda, though. Johnstone was far more prominent as a prankster, the energy from which he parlayed into a broadcasting career, which included color work with the Yankees in 1989 and 1990.

OK, fine, we’ll cut to the chase, though. It’s the way Johnstone would want to be remembered anyway. Would you like to see him scare Yankees hopeful Deion Sanders with a live snake?

The energy that radiated from Johnstone’s post-career pranks can sometimes overwhelm his mid-career heroics, but make no mistake: Johnstone was an essential glue guy, and a more-than-competent hitter.

For 20 years.

We send best wishes to his family during this difficult time — all of us have lost a pillar of pure fun, even those of us who did not know him.

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