John Joseph "Jack" Cust III (born January 16, 1979
in Flemington, New Jersey) is an outfielder for the
Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball.
Cust attended Immaculata High School in Somerville,
New Jersey. In 1997, he was first team High School
All-American at first base.
Cust made his major league debut with the
Diamondbacks on September 26, 2001.
On January 7, 2002 Cust was traded by the
Diamondbacks with catcher J.D. Closser to the
Colorado Rockies for pitcher Mike Myers. Cust spent
the majority of the 2002 season with the Rockies
Triple-A affliate, the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. He
played in 35 games with the big league club, going
11-65 (.169 batting average) with 1 home run. On
March 11, 2003 he was traded by the Rockies to the
Baltimore Orioles for outfielder Chris Richard and
cash.
During an August 16, 2003 game, between the
Baltimore Orioles and the New York Yankees, Cust was
the tying run in the 12th inning with two outs when
he tried to score from first base on a single to the
gap by Larry Bigbie. Cust first stumbled and fell
down between 3rd and home plate, resulting in his
being caught in a rundown. Cust outmaneuvered the
defense, and eventually found himself sprinting
towards home plate with nobody covering it. Instead
of scoring easily, however, Cust fell down for the
second time in the same play. He was tagged out by
third baseman Aaron Boone to end the game, providing
one of the wildest endings to a baseball game in
recent history.
Cust finished the 2003 season batting .260 (19-73)
with 4 home runs in the majors after being with the
Ottawa Lynx (Orioles Triple-A team) for the first 4
months of the season. He would have just 1 one at
bat in the majors with the Orioles in the 2004
season and was granted free agency after the end of
the season.
On November 15, 2004 he was signed by the Oakland
Athletics. He spent the whole season in Triple-A
Sacramento and was granted free agency after the
season. On December 6, 2005, he signed a minor
league contract with the San Diego Padres. He just
had 3 at bats in the 2006 season.
Cust began the 2007 with the San Diego Padres
Triple-A team, the Portland Beavers. On May 3, 2007,
the Padres traded Cust to the Oakland Athletics. The
Athletics needed another designated hitter due to an
injury to veteran Mike Piazza. He made his season
debut on May 5, 2007, going 1-3 with a home run.
Cust quickly endeared himself to A's fans by hitting
6 home runs in his first 7 games with the A's. Cust
hit .346 with 14 RBIs during the seven game stretch.
On May 13, 2007, with two outs and an 0-2 count in
the bottom of the ninth, the A's rallied to score 5
runs to beat Joe Borowski and the Cleveland Indians
10-7, with Cust hitting a walk-off 3-run home run
off Fernando Cabrera.
After hitting .348 with 1 double and 5 home runs
along with 13 RBIs, Cust shared Co-American League
Player of the Week honors along with teammate Dan
Johnson for the week ending May 13th, 2007.
On August 10, 2007, Cust hit his first Major League
grand slam off relief pitcher Macay McBride of the
Detroit Tigers. He also hit a 3-run double earlier
in the game to give him a career high 7 RBIs. He
finished the 2007 season leading the Athletics in
home runs with 26. In 2007, he walked 21.0% of the
time, tops in the major leagues, and struck out
41.5% of the time, also tops in the majors.
On December 13, 2007, he was named in the Mitchell
Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an
Independent Investigation Into the Illegal Use of
Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances
by Players in Major League Baseball even though
there was never proof/evidence to support the claim
against him.
