Jack Cust, Who Are Ye?

After one season, Jack Custis still a bit of a vagary to Oakland fans.  The unruly statistics from his first full season offer apungent picture of a player hardwired to do one of three things—walk, strikeout, or put the ball on the other side of the fence, which he did an eyepopping fifty-eight percent of the time. But his sometimes-labyrinthine past has the air of the lonesome travelerone stop away from washing out, with a whiff of the dubious creeping in fromthe shadows. Jack Cust was a mythic powerhitter, who for eleven seasons toiled in the proverbial bushes of the minorleagues.  In 1998, his first yearin professional ball, he hit eleven home runs in 285 at bats for the mightyLethbridge Black Diamonds and the South Bend Silver Hawks, both affiliates ofthe Arizona Diamondbacks, the team that drafted him in the first round a yearbefore.  He went on to the HighDesert Mavericks and the El Paso Diablos, hitting 52 home runs in two seasonsbefore settling into Arizona’s Triple-A affiliate, ... [link]