Jerry Dean Lumpe (/ˈlʌmpiː/ LUMP-ee;[1] June 2, 1933 – August 15, 2014) was an American professional baseball player and coach.
Named for National Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Jerome "Dizzy" Dean,[3] Lumpe was born in Lincoln, Missouri.
[7][4] Greenwade was the same scout who earlier signed future Yankee hall of fame great Mickey Mantle.
[11] Lumpe maintained strong ties to the university and died in 2014 in Springfield, Missouri, the school's home, where he had been a longtime resident.
[9] Lumpe rose through the Yankee farm system during the early 1950s, although he missed part of the 1953 and all of the 1954 minor league seasons while performing military service.
[9] He made the Bombers' roster for the first time in 1956, appearing in 20 games, as a member of the expanded early-season 28-man squad (though the number 28 was formally instituted in 1957 and was greater in 1956),[12] and the post-September-1 40-man allotment.
He appeared in 81 games, with 54 starts at third base, and hit his first three MLB home runs,[14] as the Yankees won another American League pennant.
[26][27] His best two offensive seasons came in 1961 and 1962, as he held down the right side of the Kansas City infield with first baseman Siebern, his teammate in college and with the Yankees.
[31] After a solid 1963 campaign with Kansas City, when he batted .271 in 157 games, and had a full season career high .988 fielding percentage in a league leading 155 games at second base (barely behind the league leader Nellie Fox who had the same .988 percentage),[14][32] he was traded along with Dave Wickersham and Ed Rakow to the Detroit Tigers for Rocky Colavito, Bob Anderson and $50,000 on November 18.
[34] Lumpe, in turn, became the first-string second baseman for the first-division Tigers, playing alongside shortstop Dick McAuliffe.
Lumpe did not appear in the July 7 contest at Shea Stadium, won by the National League on Johnny Callison's walk-off home run.
[7][39] Lumpe also was a regular for the Tigers in both 1965 and 1966, although his offensive production began to fall off as he approached his mid thirties, while his fielding percentage remained strong.
[14] Lumpe returned to the game for one season, 1971, as the first-base coach of the Oakland Athletics[5] on the staff of his former Kansas City teammate Dick Williams (who had also managed the 1967 Red Sox).
[44][45] The 1971 Athletics won the American League West Division championship on the strength of 101 regular-season victories, but dropped the 1971 ALCS to the Baltimore Orioles in three straight games.