LOS ANGELES – Jay Johnstone, who won World Series championships as a versatile outfielder with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers while being baseball’s merry prankster, has died.
He was 74.He died last Saturday of complications from COVID-19 and also had suffered from dementia in recent years, according to his daughter Mary Jayne Sarah Johnstone.
He died at a nursing home in Granada Hills, she said Monday.“COVID was the one thing he couldn’t fight,” his daughter said by phone. “It’s really kind of shocking.”Besides the Yankees and Dodgers, Johnstone played for the California Angels, Chicago White Sox, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Chicago Cubs during a 20-year major league career that began in 1966 and ended in 1985.