Summerville's Jackson makes it to the show — at last

It seemed the cruelest of baseball fates.

After six years of toiling in the minor leagues, Steven Jackson was warming up in the bullpen at Yankee Stadium. One call from Yankees manager Joe Girardi and Jackson's dream of pitching in the majors — born on the playing fields of Summerville, honed at Clemson University — would come true.

That call never came.

Jackson spent more than a week with the Yankees in late April without appearing in a game. So close to the dream, and yet so far away.

"It was discouraging," said Jimmy Jackson, Steven's father. "But he handled it really well. He's got a very level head on him, and he always kept saying his time would come."

On Monday night in Pittsburgh, Jackson's time finally came.

Released by the Yankees and picked up on waivers by the Pirates on May 18, Jackson was called up Sunday and made his major league debut Monday, pitching a scoreless inning in an 8-5 win over the New York Mets.

After 162 games and more than 544 innings pitched in the minors, and after the close call with the Yankees, there's little wonder that tears flowed at the Jackson home in Summerville on Monday as Jimmy, wife Rebecca and oldest son Gil gathered to watch Steven's debut.

"My wife started crying," said Jimmy, a Summerville banker. "It was just hard to believe he had finally gotten there."

Jackson, a 6-5, 215-pound right-hander, was a standout for Summerville High School and Clemson and is the latest in a handful of Lowcountry products to make it to the major leagues.

Brett Gardner, from Holly Hill and College of Charleston, is patrolling center field for the Yankees, while catcher Matt Wieters (Stratford HS, Georgia Tech) was called up by the Orioles last week.

Neither of those players put it in as many years on minor league buses as did the 27-year-old Jackson, who was a 10th-round pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks out of Clemson in the 2004 draft. Traded to the Yankees in 2006 (as part of the Randy Johnson deal), Jackson has pitched in Missoula, Yakima, South Bend, Trenton, Tennessee, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and Indianapolis in pursuit of his dream, going from a starter to a reliever and compiling a 28-29 record and a 4.23 earned-run average in six seasons.

"He's had his disappointments," Jimmy Jackson said. "You don't go through that rigamarole without some disappointments. But he always felt like he was good enough to pitch at the big league level. A lot of making it there is opportunity. It's not necessarily how good you are doing, but how good the guy above you is doing. You have to be in the right place at the right time."

After Jackson posted a 1.88 ERA in seven games with Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season, it looked like the time was right. The Yankees called him up, but never used him in a game.

"It's just the way it worked out," Jackson told Pittsburgh reporters. "They needed a long man at the time I got called up. Then, the starters started going eight innings and handing the ball off to (closer) Mariano Rivera to finish. It was still a great experience, even though I didn't get into a game. It will help me now because I know a little bit more of what to expect."

Another shock came when the Yankees released him, and Jackson was actually out of baseball for 10 days before the Pirates picked him up. After four appearances in Class AAA Indianapolis, he got the call from Pirates on Sunday.

"It was a struggle there for a bit," Steven Jackson said. "But I got straightened out. This is a little surprising to me, coming up here so fast. But I'm really excited."

So are the folks in Summerville. Steven and his wife, Lindsey, are expecting a baby girl in October, and Daddy has made it to the majors.

Reach Jeff Hartsell at jhartsell@postandcourier.com.