Josh Donaldson joined Auburn baseball’s Wall of Fame on Friday, adding his name to a group that includes Bo Jackson, Frank Thomas, Gregg Olson and Tim Hudson. His No. 4 jersey will reside at the bottom of the War Eagle Wall in left field, another marker of how far he has traveled from Auburn to the major leagues.
Donaldson said he was thrilled by the honor and called it special to be on the wall with the players already there. For Auburn, the move recognizes one of the program’s most accomplished alumni, a player who starred for the Tigers from 2005 through 2007, hit.307 with 28 career home runs and later built a 13-year MLB career that produced 279 homers, a 2015 American League Most Valuable Player award for Toronto and three All-Star selections.
His path from Auburn also included a draft leap by the Chicago Cubs with the 48th overall pick in the Major League Baseball Draft and an MLB debut with the Oakland Athletics in 2010. Auburn has already honored him in other ways, including by naming the Josh Donaldson Hitting Lab in the Player Development Center in right field and by making a leadership gift for the same facility. Donaldson said he wanted players coming to Auburn to feel they would not be missing anything and would have every chance to develop into the best player they could be.
The honor also ties Donaldson to the school’s older baseball standard. He and Frank Thomas are the only players in Auburn program history to be league MVPs, a comparison that puts him in rare company and underscores why the school continues to place him among its defining figures.
Butch Thompson, Auburn’s head coach and the Tigers’ pitching coach during Donaldson’s time on the Plains, praised his former player’s edge and persistence. Thompson said Donaldson had great skills, was not scared of anybody or anything, and stayed in it and kept fighting. That long arc, from Faith Academy in Mobile to Auburn to the big leagues, is the story the wall now tells in left field. Auburn has made clear that Donaldson is not only part of its past, but part of the standard it still wants to project to the next generation.
