{"id":815279,"date":"2026-08-16T06:58:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T06:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/815279\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T06:58:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T06:58:35","slug":"butch-huskey-the-penultimate-met-to-wear-no-42-dead-at-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/815279\/","title":{"rendered":"Butch Huskey, the penultimate Met to wear No. 42, dead at 54"},"content":{"rendered":"

Butch Huskey, who was the penultimate Met to wear No. 42 and spent parts of five seasons in Queens, has died, the team announced Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He was 54 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huskey died from a blood clot in his lung, The Post\u2019s Dan Martin confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI just want to acknowledge this solemn day with the passing of Butch Huskey this morning,\u201d Mets interim manager Andy Green said. \u201cJust want to send prayers and thoughts to his family. I know all of our Mets family is thinking of him and the people who love him today.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ButchMets player Butch Huskey follows through on a double in the first inning against the Brewers
on Friday, May 22, 1998. New York Post<\/p>\n

Huskey was the Mets\u2019 seventh-round pick in 1989 out of high school, and he made his MLB debut four years later before going on to appear in 414 games for the Mets \u2014 while also spending time with the Mariners, Twins, Red Sox and Rockies. He hit .264 with a .740 OPS with the Mets while playing both infield and outfield, and in 1997 he launched 24 homers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Until 2016, Huskey held the Mets record for most RBIs in an inning after collecting five during the sixth frame of a 1998 game against the Marlins. After the 1998 season, the Mets traded Huskey to the Mariners, and he was dealt again to the Red Sox \u2014 a team that ended up making the ALCS in 1999 before losing to the Yankees and falling short of breaking the franchise\u2019s World Series curse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a core part of Huskey\u2019s legacy with the Mets \u2014 as a former hyped prospect who, in a 1993 article in The Post, was dubbed as their \u201cthird baseman of the near future\u201d \u2014 came with his jersey number. He wore No. 42 when Jackie Robinson\u2019s number was universally retired on April 15, 1997 and said on a Mets broadcast in 2024 that he remembers the \u201cwhole night\u201d when Robinson\u2019s wife Rachel, commissioner Bud Selig and then-President Bill Clinton made the announcement during the fifth inning of the Mets\u2019 game against the Dodgers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MetsMets manager Bobby Valentine is ecstatic after Butch Huskey (42) hit a home run in the sixth inning during a game against the Padres on August 23, 1997. The home run was Huskey\u2019s third hit of the game, making the score 4-2. 8.23.97<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the best memories I had in my lifetime,\u201d Huskey said on the 2024 broadcast, \u201cand it\u2019ll always stay with me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Huskey, in a 2024 press conference, said he didn\u2019t have an inkling about the ceremony. He knew something big was happening because of Clinton and the presidential security detail, but \u201cI didn\u2019t grasp how big it was until that happened.\u201d Initially, he didn\u2019t think he\u2019d be able to wear his number anymore. But he became one of the players grandfathered in and allowed to continue wearing 42.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Huskey recalled on a 2024 episode of \u201cAmazin\u2019 Conversations with Jay Horowitz\u201d that he wrote an essay in high school about the legacy of Robinson after an English teacher \u2014 who loved Robinson and knew that Huskey loved baseball \u2014 brought the paper idea to him. And, as of then, he still had that No. 42 jersey from the retirement night with Rachel\u2019s autograph. Mo Vaughn, who was another player grandfathered into wearing that number, was the last Mets player to don No. 42.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt meant the world to me and not just myself but a lot of other kids, people of color\u201d Huskey said on the 2024 broadcast about wearing Robinson\u2019s number. \u201cHe went through things that paved for us to have it not as hard as he did, and I just don\u2019t think I could\u2019ve done what he did to go that route with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Butch Huskey, who was the penultimate Met to wear No. 42 and spent parts of five seasons in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":815280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[26522,363,1189,10756,99],"class_list":["post-815279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-deaths","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-obituaries","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=815279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/815279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/815280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=815279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=815279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=815279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}