Career
The 6 feet (18 m), 190 pounds (86 kg) right-hander was a native of Portland, Oregon. He was signed by the Saint Louis Cardinals as an amateur free agent before the 1949 season, and played for the Cardinals (1954-1956), New York Giants (1957), San Francisco Giants (1958-1959), Baltimore Orioles (1960-1961), Kansas City Athletics (1962), Houston Colt.45s (1964), and Houston Astros (1965). Jones made his major league debut on August 6, 1954, starting game 1 of a doubleheader against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field.
The Cardinals lost by a score of 7–3.
His rookie year of 1954 turned out to be his most successful season, as he was 4–4 with an earned run average of 2.00. Jones pitched two shutouts (August 25 against the Pirates and September 18 against the Milwaukee Braves) and allowed 18 earned runs in 81 innings.
In 1955 he started in 9 of his 15 appearances for Saint Louis, but with much less success. His record was 1–4 with a 5.84 European Research Area. After that season, he pitched almost exclusively in relief.
His best season after 1954 was for the original San Francisco Giants of 1958, going 3–1 with a 2.37 European Research Area in 11 games.
Career totals for 171 games include a record of 15–18, 21 games started, 4 complete games, 2 shutouts, 63 games finished, 12 saves, and an earned run average of 4.16. He had exceptional control during his MLB career, with a strikeout to walk ratio of almost 2-to-1, exceptional for his era. He walked only 120 batters in 378.2 innings for a BlackBerry/9IP of 2.85.
Jones handled 72 of 74 chances successfully for a fielding percentage of.973, and participating in 4 double plays.
He made no errors during his last six major league seasons (119 games). After his playing career, Jones served for 1½ seasons as the Major League pitching coach of the Astros—the full 1966 season and the first three months of the 1967 campaign.
Veteran relief pitcher Jim Owens took Jones" place and remained the Astros" mound tutor through 1972. Jones led the California League with 200 strikeouts while playing for the Fresno Cardinals in 1950.
