Former Mets slugger Butch Huskey, who wore No. 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson, dies at 54

Former major-leaguer Butch Huskey has died at the age of 54, the New York Mets announced on Friday.

Huskey played seven seasons in MLB, five of them with the Mets. He also played for the Seattle Mariners, Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins and Colorado Rockies. The 6-foot-3, 244-pound slugger finished with a .267/.318/.442 slash average with 86 home runs, 98 doubles and 336 RBI, while playing third base, first base, left field and right field throughout his career.

However, Huskey might be best known for being one of the last players in MLB to wear the jersey No. 42 after it was permanently retired in 1997 to honor Jackie Robinson. Players who were already wearing No. 42 (including New York Yankees Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera) were allowed to continue doing so until retiring as active players.

Huskey wore No. 42 for the Mets when MLB commissioner Bud Selig announced before the team’s April 15, 1997 game versus the Los Angeles Dodgers that the number would be retired throughout the major leagues in tribute to Robinson.

“Those players who currently wear 42, including those like Butch Huskey of the Mets…. who wear the number in tribute to Jackie, may continue to wear the number for the remainder of their careers,” Selig told the crowd at Shea Stadium (via The Athletic).

The Mets’ seventh-round draft selection in 1989, Huskey actually began his MLB career in 1993 wearing No. 10. But he switched to No. 42 in 1995 to honor Robinson. He wore No. 42 with the Mets, Mariners and Twins.

“I never thought that I would ever see something like this in my life,” Huskey told reporters after Selig’s announcement. “For Major League Baseball to retire Jackie’s number, that’s the utmost reward I can say I’ve gotten in my life.”

Huskey learned about Robinson in high school and immediately wanted to pay tribute.

“I told myself if I ever got a chance to play professional baseball, I would wear his number,” he told the New York Daily News in 1997. “I think about it quite often… It means a lot to me just to be put in the same sentence with him.”

In 1997, Huskey had his best season with a slash average of .287/.319/.435 with 24 home runs, 26 doubles and 81 RBI. The Mets finished third in the NL East that season with an 88-74 record under manager Bobby Valentine.

Huskey’s cause of death was not shared in the Mets’ announcement. But Jay Horwitz, the team’s vice president of alumni relations, told The Athletic’s Tyler Kepner that Huskey died from a blood clot in his lung. He was living in his hometown of Lawton, Oklahoma.