The Cal 100: No. 1 -- Jackie Jensen
We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.
No. 1: Jackie Jensen
Cal Sports Connection: Cal's greatest two-sport athlete, Jensen had the football program's first 1,000-yard rushing season on a Rose Bowl team in 1948 after helping the Bears capture the first-ever College World Series title in '47.
Claim to Fame: Jensen played 11 seasons in the Major Leagues, hitting 199 home runs and winning the American League MVP in 1958 before retiring in '61 due to an extreme fear of flying.
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Deciding who should be No. 1 in The Cal 100 was not easy — a case could be made for basically anyone in our top-10.
Ultimately, we settled on Jackie Jensen, a star from Cal’s Golden Age following World War II. Jensen’s status as an elite two-sport man and his popularity in the Bay Area before the arrival of Willie Mays and Joe Montana and Stephen Curry separated him from the crowd.
Jackie Jensen was Cal's first 1,000-yard single-season rusher.
Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
Jensen led the Golden Bears to the first College World Series title in 1947 — pitching the national championship game against future president George Bush and his Yale teammates.
He became Cal football’s first 1,000-yard rusher in 1948, powering the Bears to the first of three consecutive Rose Bowl appearances and finishing fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting.
He married Olympic silver medalist diver Zoe Ann Olsen in 1949, their yellow Cadillac convertible escorted by motorcycle police from the First Presbyterian Church to the posh Athens Club, where more than 1,000 guests and party crashers reportedly showed up for what was the social event of the year in Oakland.
And he played 11 seasons in the Major Leagues, winning the American League MVP in 1958 when his teammates included Ted Williams.
Jackie Jensen's 1960 Topps baseball card
I interviewed Williams about Jensen in 1999 and the man who is considered perhaps the greatest hitter in baseball history was unequivocal in his praise of Cal’s Golden Boy.
“I had seen him with the Yankees, and I knew he ran fast . . . like a halfback or something,” Williams said. “He was a hell of a good outfielder, and he developed into quite a hitter.
“I can only tell you he was a damn good ballplayer. I would have him on my team anytime.”
Everyone loved Jackie Jensen.
Cal football coach Pappy Waldorf, describing the running style of his 5-foot-11, 190-pound star, who averaged 7.3 yards per carry in 1948, said Jensen “can elude the hand he cannot see.”
From 1954 through ’59, with the Boston Red Sox, Jensen drove in 667 runs — more than any player in the majors. More than Mays, Mantle or Aaron. Jensen finished in the top-20 in MVP voting five of those six seasons, among the top-10 three times.
He led the AL in stolen bases with 22 in 1954, hit at least 20 home runs each of those six seasons and won a Gold Glove in 1959 for his play in the outfield.
Cal has a legacy of two-sport athletes — Tony Gonzalez (No. 7), Matt Biondi (No. 10), Brick Muller (No. 11), Orval Overall (No. 17), Sam Chapman (No. 61) and Steve Bartkowski (No. 72) previously appeared in The Cal 100.
None of them was as accomplished in both endeavors.
In fact, we found no one with the combined credentials as a college football and major-league baseball player to match Jensen. Bo Jackson won the 1985 Heisman but never finished higher than 10th in baseball’s MVP balloting. Deion Sanders was eighth in the 1988 Heisman race but never was a baseball All-Star or top-10 MVP finisher.
Jensen’s only rival in this particular debate is Dick Groat, the one-time Duke star, who was the Helms Foundation’s 1951 college basketball player of the year and the 1960 NL MVP.
Who else can claim playing in the East-West Shrine college football all-star game, the College World Series, the Rose Bowl and MLB’s All-Star Game and World Series?
No one, actually.
Jackie Jensen as Cal's baseball coach
Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
If Jensen’s life appeared perfect, it was only that way on the field. Away from the game, he was at times a tortured soul. He grew up largely without a father, he was divorced twice from his high-school sweetheart Olsen and he suffered business failures during his post-baseball days.
It was a paralyzing fear of flying - stemming from a near mid-air collision on a flight to Japan for an exhibition game in 1954 - that led to Jensen twice retiring from baseball. He was done for good after the 1961 season finale against the Yankees, when he pinch-hit for Tracy Stallard, who had surrendered Roger Maris’ record-setting 61st home run.
Former Cal teammate Charles “Boots” Erb, best man in Jensen’s wedding and co-owner with him of the Bow and Bell restaurant in Oakland’s Jack London Square, said the fear was very real.
“Jack used to call (an airplane) the iron coffin,” Erb said.
On the playing field, Jensen made it all look so easy. He was a star in both sports at Oakland High School, where he also wrote for the student newspaper, served as class president and began courting Olsen. After a 15-month stint in the Navy, Jensen enrolled at Cal in the fall of 1946.
Although he was not an everyday outfielder as a freshman on the 1947 baseball team, Jensen batted .385 and was the Bears’ ace pitcher. He was the starter opposite Texas’ Bobby Layne in the victory that lifted Cal into the inaugural CWS, then impacted both games in Cal’s sweep of Yale.
"We walked the eighth hitter to get to the pitcher, and it was Jackie Jensen," George Bush told Associated Press in 2007, alluding to the fact that Jensen had come on in relief as Cal's third pitcher in the first game. "He hit one that's still rolling out there in Kalamazoo.”
Jensen was the Bears' starting pitcher in the deciding game.
Jackie Jensen could run or throw the football.
Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
On the football field, he returned a punt 56 yards for a touchdown against Wisconsin the first time he touched the ball in ’1946.
His star blossomed a year later when Cal hired Waldorf as coach, rushing for 534 yards and intercepting seven passes on defense and handling punting duties. He threw an 80-yard, game-winning touchdown pass to Paul Keckley in the 1947 Big Game, and in ‘48 earned first-team All-America honors for a team that was undefeated in the regular season.
“There was no doubt that Jensen was our best athlete. Everybody knew it,” former quarterback Dick Erickson said. “Ultimately, he was our best passer, our best runner, our best kicker, our best defensive player.”
In the Rose Bowl against Northwestern, Jensen dashed 67 yards for a touchdown in the first half before leg cramps sidelined him. The Bears lost 20-14.
Jensen finished his football career as the Bears’ all-time rushing leader with 1,703 yards.
Jensen defied the conventions of the day by leaving Cal early to sign with the Pacific Coast League’s Oakland Oaks, who matched a $75,000 signing bonus the Yankees had offered.
“I was operating in a dreamland where there were bubbles that would never burst,” Jensen said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times in 1974. “There was a money tree in my backyard. Why shouldn’t I pluck off the dollars when I wanted to?”
The Yankees bought his contact before the 1950 season, prompting the suggestion that Jensen would become Joe DiMaggio’s successor. He played sporadically in New York, batting .249 with nine home runs in 108 games over part of three seasons seasons before being traded to Washington while Mickey Mantle emerged as the Yankees’ next big star.
Jackie Jensen had his best MLB seasons with the Red Sox.
Photo courtesy of Cal Athletics
By 1954, he was in Boston, where his career blossomed. Jensen led the AL with 11 triples in ’56 and in his MVP season of ’58 had career-best totals of 35 home runs and 122 RBIs.
Everything was clicking. Jensen starred as himself in a made-for-TV movie in 1957, he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and he hit five home runs in a row at one point in the televised Home Run Derby program.
Jensen tried everything to overcome his fear of flying, including tranquilizers and a hypnotist. But with 199 career home runs, he retired permanently in ‘61.
“I was worried the plane was going to crash every single time I went up,” Jensen told the Boston Globe in 1980. “Then, after we landed, all I’d be thinking about was how many days it would be until we had to fly again. It was just an awful time.”
Jensen coached baseball at both Cal (109-85 from 1974 through ’77) and Nevada, where he also became sports director for Reno’s KTVN. Divorced by then for the second time from Olsen, he met Katherine Cortesi, a producer for the TV station.
“The first time I saw him he was just stunning,” she recalled years ago. “He was just so different. He looked incredibly strong. He dressed very well and he was very much a gentleman. His hair was blonde, he was very tanned and his eyes were distinctly light blue.
“I just thought, `Mercy.’ “
The two eventually moved to Virginia and started a Christmas tree farm. Happy and relaxed, Jensen gave occasional baseball clinics for local kids and spent his free time reading, studying Thomas Jefferson and keeping a log of his farm chores.
In May of 1982, he was invited to play in a Red Sox old-timers game.
“We’re going to fly,” he announced, surprising his wife.
“I think he felt everything was OK," she said.
Two months later, Jensen suffered his second heart attack. He was dead at 55.
Cover photos of Jackie Jensen courtesy of Cal Athletics
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
