According to Chris Bumbaca of USA Today on Wednesday, former Major League Baseball all-star outfielder Claudell Washington of Los Angeles, California passed away at age 65 due to prostate cancer. Washington was an all-star with Oakland Athletics in 1975 and the Atlanta Braves in 1984.
Washington played 17 seasons in the Major Leagues from 1974 to 1990 with the Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, New York Mets, Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees and California Angels. He played in 1912 games and batted .278 with 164 home runs and 824 runs batted in. Washington also had 6787 at bats in his career, scored 926 runs, and had 1884 hits, 334 doubles, 69 triples, 312 stolen bases, 468 walks, 2848 total bases, a .325 on base percentage, and a .420 slugging percentage.
Washington won a World Series as a rookie with the Athletics in 1974. In five games during the 1974 World Series, Washington batted .571 as Oakland beat the Los Angeles Dodgers four games to one in an all-California World Series.
Twice Washington reached the .300 mark in batting average for a single season. The first time came in 1975 with the Athletics when he was an all-star, and the second time came in 1988 with the Yankees. In both seasons, Washington batted .308. In 1984, when Washington was an all-star with the Braves, he had a career-high 17 home runs.
In 1985, Washington tested positive for drugs. However, due to the fact that at the time Major League Baseball had an extremely loose drug policy, Washington was allowed to keep playing if he volunteered 50 hours of time at a drug-related community service establishment, and donated five percent of his salary.
Washington is also known in American pop culture history. In the famous American movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Bueller goes to Wrigley Field when he is supposedly sick from school. During his day off, he catches a foul ball hit off the baseball bat of Claudell Washington.
