The baseball bug bit Joe Jensen when he was a tyke and never let go.
He grew up playing on the storied Dunning Fields near his St. Paul home. By age 6, he was taking pointers on the game from a godfather who was a baseball scout.
Jensen finally hung up his cleats at 82, after decades as a semi-pro and amateur pitcher. He retired with a career record of 273-58, two no-hitters and an enviable ERA of 2.45. About half of those victories came after he was 52.
"He knew where every pitch was going," said Chuck Murry, a friend who coached Jensen on various amateur teams from 1986 up until just a few years ago. "He could throw a nice changeup and throw a curveball and they'd be swinging too late or too soon. He had very good control."
Jensen died Oct. 2 of acute myeloid leukemia at his Burnsville home. He was 84.
Although he also played college football and hockey, baseball was his true love, said his wife, Pat. Early in their courtship, Jensen took her to a baseball field, handed her a bat and stood her over home plate. Then he wound up and threw a curveball at her, so she could experience it. She grew to love the game as much as he did.
A high school coach at St. Thomas Academy in Mendota Heights first recognized Jensen's potential as a hurler, moving him from the outfield to the pitcher's mound. When the college scouts came calling, Jensen, whose father died when he was 2, stayed in the neighborhood to play ball at St. Thomas College. At 20, he signed a contract with a Cleveland Indians' farm team and dropped out of school with two years' eligibility left.
The Army snatched his dreams of the majors during the Korean War, but Jensen was able to keep his pitching arm nimble. Instead of getting sent off to combat, Jensen headed to La Crosse, Wis., where he played baseball for the special services, the military's entertainment branch, to keep the troops' spirits up. At catcher was a young Elston Howard, who later became the first African-American to play for the New York Yankees.
