He traded a football legacy for baseball dreams. Now, this Pirates outfielder's aggressive approach, honed by his athletic family, shines.
Jake Mangum decided not to get into the family business. Yet it has turned out all right for the Pittsburgh Pirates’ outfielder.
Mangum’s father, grandfather, and uncle all played professional football. Jake’s dad, John Mangum Jr., was a defensive back for the Chicago Bears for nine seasons from 1990-98.
The switch-hitting Mangum chose baseball and reached the major leagues last season with the Tampa Bay Rays. The Pirates acquired Mangum last month as part of a three-team trade that included the Houston Astros.
All-Star second baseman Brandon Lowe, who also went from the Rays to Pittsburgh, was the headliner in the trade. However, the Pirates like Mangum’s aggressive approach at the plate, which led to him hitting .296/.330/.368 with three home runs and 27 stolen bases in 118 games last season.
Mangum says his hitting style is a product of growing up in a football family. Though he walked just 19 times in 464 plate appearances as a rookie, he had just 64 strikeouts.
"I've been called a pest a few times, and I don't know how to take that. I get it, though,” Mangum said. “I was kind of raised with a football mindset. I love football, absolutely loved it, but I learned at a young age, I always knew baseball was the sport I was going to pursue. I'd say the football mindset. What I'm also learning is my dad didn't blitz every play at cornerback. He dropped it into man coverage and zone coverage sometimes. There are times where you have to be smart about it.”
As a youth player in Flowood, Miss., Mangum was an Atlanta Braves fan, and his favorite player was Hall of Famer Chipper Jones. John Mangum’s background was in football, but he was the one who suggested his son become a switch-hitter like Jones.
“I’m a natural righty hitter, so I threw left-handed and hit right,” Jake Mangum said. “Whenever I figured out, hey, I want to be a baseball player, the first thing my dad said was, ‘I can’t think of one left-handed throwing, right-handed hitter in the big leagues.’ I think there was one with the Marlins at the time.
“My dad said, ‘We’re going to need to hit left-handed if you’re going to do this.’ I was like, ‘All right, I’m down.’ So we started watching Chipper Jones a lot, watching how he hit from different sides of the plate, did he have a different approach, did he have the same mechanics? So Chipper, I have to say, was my favorite just because he was a switch-hitter. I really watched him a lot.”
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