Lexington’s ‘Sweet’ Lou Johnson, a star for Dodgers in 1965 World Series, dies at 86
Lou Johnson, the first Black man from Lexington to play major league baseball and one of the heroes of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 1965 World Series championship, has died at age 86, the team announced Friday.
“The Dodgers are saddened to hear about the passing of former Dodger ‘Sweet’ Lou Johnson,” the team posted on its Twitter account. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.”
In eight years in the majors, Johnson had a career average of .258 with 48 home runs.
But he achieved lasting fame in 1965, when he starred for the Dodgers in the World Series. In a seven-game series against the Minnesota Twins, the left fielder hit .296 with two home runs and two doubles.
His fourth-inning homer off Jim Kaat in Game 7 was the only run Sandy Koufax needed in a 2-0 Dodgers win.
Johnson was part of another historic moment involving Koufax earlier that year, scoring the only run in Koufax’s perfect-game shutout of the Chicago Cubs. Johnson walked, was bunted to second, stole third and scored on an errant throw to third by Chicago’s catcher.
In 2004, Johnson returned to Lexington to witness the dedication of Lou Johnson Way, about 100 feet from his childhood home in the south Lexington neighborhood of Pralltown.
Ten members of Johnson’s family, including his then-101-year-old mother Sidney Johnson, attended the ceremony, along with Mayor Teresa Isaac and representatives of Dodgers.
“Sweet Lou helped shape the dreams of an entire generation,” Isaac said at the time.
“Not many people get a street named after them,” said Johnson, who frequently stopped in Lexington to visit his mother, who is now deceased.
Lexington had honored Johnson twice previously. In 1978, Lou Johnson Park, just a few dozen feet up Lou Johnson Way, was dedicated to the baseball star. In 1998, the city named a T-ball league after Johnson.
Johnson attended Dunbar High School in Lexington. He played baseball for the semi-pro Lexington Hustlers and minor-league Lexington Colts. He made it to the majors in 1960 with the Cubs after a stint with a Negro League team, the Indianapolis Clowns.
His path to success was not always a smooth one.
“All we (Black people) were ever told we could be was social workers,” he said. “All that really brought for me and my family was the motivation for us to have equal opportunity and to succeed.”
When Johnson reached the majors, he stuck around for eight seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, the Milwaukee Braves, the Dodgers, the Cubs again, the Cleveland Indians and the California Angels. He completed his baseball career in 1969.
After his major league career, Johnson lived in Los Angeles with his wife, Sarah, and worked in the community affairs department for the Dodgers.
“He serves as an inspiration and teacher to youth all around L.A.,” Gary Miereanu, a communications director for the Dodgers told the Herald-Leader in 2004. “He’s always giving selflessly.”