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Fielder Jones
Year 1896-1908, 1914-1915
Teams: Bro 1896-1900, Chicago White Stockings 1901-1908, token apps with StL in Federal League
Career numbers: .285 / .368 / .347. OPS+ 111. Runs 1180 w/ 107 runs /162g. RBI 631 w/ 57 season. 1920 hits w/ 174/ 162. 817 walks w/ 74 a season.
Win Shares: 290 unadjusted, 305 adjusted. 84 in 3 consecutive years. 183 in best 7 seasons.
Seasons of 20 win shares – 9 unadjusted, 10 adjusted.
Seasons of 25 – 5 unadjusted, 6 adjusted
Seasons of 30 – 1 (his final season)
WS all-star based on best 3 outfielder seasons: 5 times – 1901, 1902, 1905, 1906, 1908 and in 1908 one of the top 3 in majors.
STATS all-star: one time
Fielding: A+ per win shares. Win Shares gold glove 7 times.
Right Fielder for four years in Brooklyn – 1896-98, 1900. Centerfielder in other years.
Was 24 when he made the majors. According to the Biographical Encyclopedia Baseball, Jones earned a degree in engineering from Alfred University, but couldn’t find a job because of the depression. He started in the Oregon State League. It doesn’t say with whom. Then he played with Corning, Birmingham, and Springfield before reaching the majors. After the 1908 season, he went into the lumber business. He was president of the Pacific Northwest League in 1912.

Manager of Chicago 1904-1908 where he finished 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 3rd. His team finished 6, 2, first, 5.5 and 1.5 games out in his tenure. StL Feds 1914, 1915. StL Browns 1916-18. Threatened to quit after the 1906 World Series in order to get $10,000 contract out of Comiskey. Seemed to be a stern taskmaster as a manager who suspended his players for mistakes or being drunk. Involved in a controversy about the last game of the AL season in 1908. He started Doc White instead of Frank Smith. White went on one day’s rest and lost to Detroit 7-0. Smith would have gone on 2 days rest. Smith and Jones did not like one another. Jones did not return to manage the next year.

While Sam Leever is brought up as a player who did not go to the majors because he had the option of being a schoolteacher ( I think it was because he didn’t have a fastball and didn’t develop a curve until later...), here is a player who did not start his career until later because he was getting an education. And who went into baseball because he couldn’t get a job as an engineer. what do you know.

Alfred University! Did he attend the College of Ceramics?

It's the same case as Leever. The 1893-96 depression was VERY nasty, as bad as 1929-41, just shorter. If you had a steady job teaching school, you didn't take a risk as a ballplayer, particularly in the monopolistic and unstable NL. If you couldn't get a job, ball presumably seemed more attractive. Jones was only 24 when he debuted in the majors, though, compared with Leever's 26, so he lost less of his career.

Huh? Players start careers at 24 all the time.

Right Fielder for four years in Brooklyn – 1896-98, 1900. Centerfielder in other years.

RF
three seasons in Brooklyn beside Mike Griffin, 1896-98.
one season in Chicago beside Dummy Hoy, 1901

Manager of Chicago 1904-1908 where he finished 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 3rd, 3rd. His team finished 6, 2, first, 5.5 and 1.5 games out in his tenure. StL Feds 1914, 1915. StL Browns 1916-18.

In St Louis,
took over the "Miners" from Mordecai Brown for the last quarter of the 1914 season. The team finished last and almost went "worst to first" in 1915, finished 0 games out(!).

handled the merger of the FL and AL teams, which didn't go as well as expected.

major league playing career, age 24.8 to 36.2