A Blue Jay from the Past: Homer Bush

Do you remember Homer Bush?

This is “A Blue Jay from the Past”. Each week, I’ll spin every Blue Jays’ season in the Wheel of Names and pick a player who played a significant number of games for the Jays, ideally a full season. This week, the Wheel of Names landed on the 2000 season, with the player we’ll look at in today’s article being Homer Bush.

Growing up in East St. Louis, Illinois, Bush was a two-sport star, excelling in both football and baseball. Eventually, he decided on baseball, getting drafted in the seventh round by the San Diego Padres in the 1991 draft.

Bush spent parts of seven seasons in the Padres organization, never making it to the big leagues with the team. However, he was traded to the New York Yankees in 1997 and made his debut that same season, getting 11 plate appearances where he had four hits and three RBIs.

Bush played 45 games with the Yankees in 1998, slashing .380/.421/.465 with a home run in 78 plate appearances, helping the Yankees win the World Series that season. Before the 1999 season, he was traded along with David Wells and Graeme Lloyd to the Jays for starting pitcher Roger Clemens.

The outfielder’s best season was in 1999 with the Jays, slashing .320/.353/.421 with five home runs in 523 plate appearances for a 97 wRC+ and a 2.8 wRC+. Bush followed that up with a .215/.271/.253 slash line in 325 plate appearances in 2000, hitting just one home run. The 2001 season was Bush’s final full season as a Blue Jay, where he slashed .306/.336/.387 with three home runs in 291 plate appearances.

In 2002, Bush was released after 83 plate appearances with the Jays, where he had a dismal 46 wRC+ and -0.3 fWAR, signing with the Florida Marlins after, where he wasn’t any better. Bush missed all of the 2003 season and returned to the Yankees organization, where he had eight plate appearances with the team that season. Due to a hip injury, he retired in 2005.

Bush has been around baseball since his retirement. He was Eugene Emeralds’ hitting coach for a period, served as the director of youth baseball programs for the Texas Rangers, and was the manager for the Staten Island FerryHawks in 2023. Moreover, his son, Homer Bush Jr. was a fourth-round pick in 2023 and is currently with the Tampa Bay Rays organization after being drafted by the Padres.