By Conor Liguori, World Baseball Network
NEW YORK, New York, October 23, 2024 — When the 2024 Major League Baseball season started, Jazz Chisholm Jr. played center field for the Miami Marlins, a team that went 4-16 in its first 20 games.
Due to early-season struggles, the Marlins made nearly everyone on the 40-man roster available in trade discussions, including Chisholm, who signed with the Arizona Diamondbacks as an international free agent from Nassau, Bahamas, in 2015. Chisholm was traded from the Diamondbacks to the Marlins in 2019 for starting pitcher Zac Gallen.
Chisholm received a brief taste of postseason baseball with the Marlins in 2023, but the Philadelphia Phillies made easy work of Miami in the NL Wild Card Series, winning the best-of-three series in two games. It was likely too quick of an exit for Chisholm to grasp the moment fully.
But in 2024, a mid-season trade to the New York Yankees has Chisholm just a few days away from his first World Series appearance. When the first pitch of the fall classic is thrown between the Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, Chisholm will become just the second player in MLB history born in the Bahamas to play in the World Series.
The last and only other Bahamian to play in a World Series game is Ed Armbrister, a two-time champion with the “Big Red Machine” Cincinnati Reds in 1975 and 1976. Armbrister did not play in the 1976 World Series but recorded four plate appearances in 1975 against the Boston Red Sox, walking twice and scoring a run.
Besides Chisholm and Armbrister, just seven other players born in the Bahamas have played in MLB. None of the seven made a postseason appearance, and Chisholm is the only player of Bahamian descent to play in an MLB All-Star Game, receiving his first selection in 2022.
Surely, Chisholm will be thinking of his home country when he steps on the field on Friday, including youth athletes in the Bahamas and Florida, who he started the Jazz Chisholm Foundation for in 2023 to provide baseball equipment and resources, as well as financial literacy programs.
“I always wanted to give back and make it easier for the kids to make it where I am,” Chisholm told MLB.com in August 2023. “I know my name gets used a lot in the Bahamas, especially for the sport of baseball. I don’t want the Jazz Chisholm Foundation to be just baseball alone. We’re going to start with baseball, but we’re going to get in the works with a couple of the NBA guys, a couple of the football guys, and make this a whole big-together thing.”
Chisholm has struggled with the bat in the 2024 postseason, hitting .133 in the ALDS in 16 plate appearances against the Kansas City Royals and .158 in 22 plate appearances in the ALCS against the Cleveland Guardians. He played above-average defense at third base despite transitioning to the hot corner for the first time in his career earlier this year with the Yankees. Chisholm turning his luck around at the plate could be substantial for the Yankees, who have been looking to win their first World Series title since 2009.
Apart from a World Series ring, Chisholm will be playing for an opportunity to represent the Bahamas, the country he calls home and still frequently visits to give back to the community. His legacy in the Bahamas will only increase whether the Yankees win or lose the World Series.
