The news yesterday delivered word of the death of Jerry Lynch at the age of 81.
Jerry Lynch had a solid, if unspectacular, career in major league baseball spent with the Pirates and the Reds. He had a lifetime BA of .277, OPS of .792 with 115 home runs and 470 RBI's. He actually had a split career as a Pirate from 1954-56 and again from 1963-66 with his years in Cincinnati sandwiched in between. He was also an extraordinary pinch hitter. At the time of his retirement, his 18 pinch hit home runs was a ML record. Even today, almost 50 years later, he ranks third all-time in that category, and he is 10th on the all-time list with 116 pinch hits. I remember that when Lynch was in his second stint with the Bucs and closing in on the pinch hit HR record, Bob Prince would always say that Lynch didn't necessarily want to set this record because he thought people would then come to think of him as strictly a bench player, and he wanted to be an everyday player.
Lynch is also known for his partnership with teammate Dick Groat in building, owning, and operating the very excellent Champion Lakes Golf Course in Ligoner, PA. If you ever played Champion Lakes, you know that as public golf courses go, they didn't come much better.
RIP Jerry Lynch.
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