Jackie Jensen Jack Eugene Jensen ( March 9 , 1927 – July 14 , 1982 ) was an American right fielder in Major League Baseball who played for three American League teams from 1950 to 1961 , most notably the Boston Red Sox . He was named the AL ' s Most Valuable Player in after hitting 35 home run s and leading the league with 122 runs batted in ; he also led the league in RBIs two other years , and in triples and stolen base s once each . Respected for his throwing arm , he won a Gold Glove Award and led the AL in assists and double play s twice each . He retired in his early thirties as major - league baseball expanded westward , due to an intense fear of flying . After being a two - sport star in college , Jensen was the first person to play in the Rose Bowl , the World Series , and the baseball All - Star Game . Career . Jensen was born in San Francisco , California . His parents divorced when he was five , and he was raised by his mother , who frequently moved the family . After serving in the Navy toward the end of World War II , he became an All - America n in two sports at the University of California . As a baseball pitcher and outfielder , he helped California to win the inaugural College World Series in . He pitched Cal to victory in the regional final by outdueling Bobby Layne of Texas , and in the championship Cal defeated a Yale team featuring future President George Bush . As a football halfback , Jensen was a consensus All - American as a junior in 1948 , becoming the first Cal player to rush for 1 , 000 yards . In the season - ending 7 – 6 victory over Stanford he ran for 170 yards , kicked a punt for 67 yards , and had a 32 - yard run late in the game in a 4th - and - 31 situation . Cal ended the regular season at 10 – 0 under coach Pappy Waldorf , winning a share of its first Pacific Coast Conference title in ten years , and Jensen placed fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting , with Doak Walker taking the award . In the 1949 Rose Bowl , Jensen scored a touchdown in the first quarter to tie the game 7 – 7 , but 4th - ranked Cal was upset 20 – 14 by 7th - ranked Northwestern . In 1949 Jensen , who batted and threw right - handed , left college after his junior year and signed with the Oakland Oaks in the Pacific Coast League . His contract – along with Billy Martin ' s – was sold to the New York Yankees in with the intention of him being a backup for Joe DiMaggio . But he played in only 108 games for the Yankees over three years , primarily in left field . He appeared as a pinch runner for Bobby Brown in the eighth inning of Game 3 of the 1950 World Series against the Philadelphia Phillies , but was in the game only briefly before Johnny Mize popped up to end the inning . Jensen did not stay in the game defensively , and the Yankees completed a sweep of the Phillies in Game 4 ; he did not appear in the 1951 Series against the New York Giants . Following the arrival of Mickey Mantle with the Yankees , in May 1952 Jensen was sent to the Washington Senators in a six - player deal , and he made his first All - Star team . He finished the season with a . 286 batting average and 80 RBIs , leading the league with 17 assists and placing third in the AL with 18 steals , a total he duplicated in 1953 . He was traded to the Red Sox in December 1953 , and led the AL with 22 steals in , also finishing third in RBIs ( 117 ) and fourth in home runs ( 25 ) . But despite his speed he also set a major league record by grounding into double plays 32 times , breaking Bobby Doerr ' s total of 31 ; the record would stand until Jim Rice grounded into 36 double plays in . No longer facing the pressure of becoming his team ' s principal star , Jensen again made the All - Star team in , leading the league with 116 RBIs and finishing tenth in the MVP vote . In he batted a career - high . 315 and led the AL with 11 triples , and in he had 103 RBIs and led the league in both assists ( 16 ) and double plays ( 4 ) . Jensen made his last All - Star team in 1958 when he batted . 286 with a league - leading 122 RBIs , also placing second in the AL with 99 walks and fifth in HRs ( 35 ) , doubles ( 31 ) , total bases ( 293 ) and on - base percentage ( . 396 ) . He won MVP honors , beating out Bob Turley , Rocky Colavito and Bob Cerv for the award . In he again led the league in RBIs ( 112 ) and won his only Gold Glove after leading the AL in double plays ( 4 ) for the second time ; he also scored a career - best 101 runs and stole 20 bases , and came in tenth in the MVP balloting . Jensen announced his retirement from baseball in January 1960 , primarily because of an intense fear of flying but also due to the long separations from his family . He stated , " I have only one life to live , and I ' ll be happier when I can spend it with my family . Being away from home with a baseball team for seven months a year doesn ' t represent the kind of life I want or the kind of life my wife and children want . " Indeed , upon his trade to the Red Sox in 1953 he considered not reporting to the team in order to return to his family in California , but general manager Joe Cronin increased his salary by $ 1 , 000 and he agreed to play . As teams had increasingly turned to air travel in the 1950s , he had unsuccessfully sought to combat his aversion to flying , aided considerably by Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey , who arranged for therapy treatments . Once major - league baseball expanded to the West Coast in 1958 , and with further expansion and constant air travel foreseen , these difficulties became virtually insurmountable . Jensen returned to play in , but turned to hypnotherapy when his panic attacks at airports became unbearable . Frustrated by a sub - par season ( . 263 , 66 RBIs ) , he retired again for good . In an 11 - season career , Jensen was a . 279 hitter with 199 home runs and 929 RBIs in 1438 games . He also collected 810 runs , 1463 hits , 259 doubles , 45 triples , 143 stolen bases , and 750 walks for a . 369 on - base percentage . Following his retirement , Jensen became sports director at a Reno , Nevada radio station , worked as a college football broadcaster for ABC television , coached baseball at the University of Nevada and at California , and also managed in the minor leagues . Co - owner of the Bow & Bell restaurant with Charles " Boots " Erb in Jack London Square . In 1949 he married his high school girlfriend Zoe Ann Olsen , the silver medalist in diving at the 1948 Summer Olympics ; the couple divorced in 1968 . They had three children , Jon , Jan , and Jay . Jay ' s son Tucker Jensen pitched in two College World Series for Embry - Riddle Aeronautical University and played in the Toronto Blue Jays organization in 2011 and 2012 . As of 2013 , he was pitching for the Gateway Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League . Jensen died of a heart attack in Charlottesville , Virginia at age 55 . He was inducted into the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame in 1983 , the College Football Hall of Fame in 1984 , and the Boston Red Sox Hall of Fame in . In 2000 the biography The Golden Boy : A Biography of Jackie Jensen was published by Peter Randall Press . The author was George I . Martin , with a foreword by Curt Gowdy .