Donald Jones, 73; Increased Safety of Hydroplane Racing

Donald Clayton Jones, 73, a former minor league baseball pitcher who led campaigns to increase the safety, sponsorship and image of unlimited hydroplane racing, died Tuesday of cancer in Seattle.

Jones headed the organization that has staged Seattle’s annual Seafair summer festival for 10 years. The principal event during Seafair is a hydroplane regatta on Lake Washington, usually in August.

Jones also became head of the Unlimited Racing Commission, now known as Hydro-Prop Inc., which oversees the national “thunderboat” circuit.

He was instrumental in developing a closed cockpit, a feature that has saved the lives of many racers, after watching Bill Muncey die in a 1981 crash in Acapulco.

A left-hander, Jones spent three years pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Class AAA farm team in Billings, Mont.