Once again however, as we’ve seen with other players who were picked in the expansion draft of 1976, Jackson ended up never playing for the team that drafted him, as Seattle turned right around and traded him to the Pittsburgh Pirates about a month later, right after Topps had their 1977 set finalized.
Drafter by Seattle with the 11th pick in the expansion draft on November 9th of 1976, Jackson just finished an excellent run for the American League champ Yankees after he came over from the Baltimore Orioles.
Helping them down the stretch, he put together a record of 6-0 with a brilliant 1.69 earned run average over 21 appearances, eight of them starts.
Already a 12-year veteran of the Majors, I don’t know why the Yanks didn’t try to keep him for the following season.
Anyway, after being selected by the new organization, they turned right around on December 7th and traded him to the Pirates, where he’d play the next four and a half years, including their championship season of 1979, where he went 8-5 with a 2.96 ERA over 72 games, along with 14 saves.
He’d finish his career after the 1982 season, putting in 18 years on a Major League mound, with a nice 86-75 record with a 3.46 ERA over 692 appearances, 83 of them starts, and 1358.2 innings pitched.
