Forrest Vandergrift Jacobs (November 4, 1925 – February 18, 2011) was a second baseman in Major League Baseball who played from 1954 through 1956 for the Philadelphia / Kansas City Athletics (1954–56), and Pittsburgh Pirates (1956).
Following his honorable military discharge, he played professional baseball for 17 seasons for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Philadelphia / Kansas City Athletics and Pittsburgh Pirates organizations, three of them in the majors, while playing for several professional league clubs including the highly competitive Cuban, Panamanian and Puerto Rican winter leagues.
[4] A baseball writer gave Jacobs the nickname in 1947 when he was playing with the Johnstown, Pennsylvania club, the Johnnies, of the Middle Atlantic League.
"[2] Jacobs was a farmhand of the Brooklyn Dodgers for eight years before becoming the property of the Philadelphia Athletics by being drafted in the winter of 1953 by Connie Mack.
[6] On April 20, 1954, Jacobs' fourth-inning triple, followed by an error on a fly ball hit by Vic Power, gave Philadelphia a 5–0 lead over the Washington Senators.
[7] On May 3 of that season, Chicago White Sox right-hander Sandalio Consuegra, retired the first 19 Athletics' hitters before Jacobs doubled in the seventh inning with one out.
[8] During 1956 spring training, Jacobs competed with Jim Finigan for the starting second base job for the Kansas City Athletics.
Both were chasing a fly ball in a game against the San Diego Padres (April 11, 1957), and Jacobs was thought to have suffered a hairline skull fracture after being carried from the field on a stretcher.
In the fourth inning of an International League game, Lou Limmer of the Toronto Maple Leafs slid into him at second base, knocking him head over heels.
[1] Another of his proudest achievements was when his personal stamp collection titled Mail It Home was featured in 2008 at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.