The Pecan Park Eagle

a real baseball pool

Baseball Pool. – C&W singer and song composer Roger Miller made the phrase famous when he once upon a time (when we were young) sang to all of us young pups of the early 1960s to remember that “you can’t go swimming in a baseball pool.” After the National League player draft of 1961, we fans of the new Colt .45s and Mets got to find out in 1962 – also – that “you can’t go winning in a baseball pool” either. Makes you wonder how we might have matched up against a team of roller-skating buffaloes had they been on the schedule back in 1962?

News received yesterday of short term original baseball pool draftee Dick Gernert’s recent death stirred questions in my own mind overnight about the survivorship of all the Houston Colt .45s who were picked up from the October 10, 1961 baseball pool of talent made available to the two newbie clubs by the eight established NL teams.

Here’s the research result in tabular form, based upon what could be gleamed from Wikipedia and Baseball Reference.com in quick time:

The Houston Colt .45 Selections in the October 10, 1961 NL Baseball Pool

FN1: 11/26/1961. Eddie Bressoud traded to Red Sox for SS Don Buddin.

FN2: 06/04/65. Never played for Houston, but the club controlled his contract until he was traded to Kansas City with a “player to be named later” on this much later date for Jim Gentile.

FN3: 12/01/61. Traded to Detroit for Bob Bruce and Manny Montejo

General Findings:

1) Of the 23 players selected by Houston, 14 are still living and 9 are dead.

2) 18 of the draftees actually played some time for Houston; 5 did not.

3) Bob Aspromonte’s 7 Houston seasons (1962-68) is the longest tenure period for all baseball pool roster players.

Note: No attempt was made here to track the record or survivorship of players acquired in subsequent trades for any of the draftees.

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The Darrell Pittman Contribution Here. It’s happened again. Working on his own, friend and colleague Darrell Pittman was also moved by the death of Dick Gernert to come up with a quick count tally on how many former Houston Colt .45s/Astros players were lost to death in 2017. Thanks for the timely contribution to a subject that’s always with us, Darrell. Your own chart will stand here as our sign out salute to the big scoreboard that never takes a break:

Houston MLB Franchise Deaths for 2017

“It’s been a rough year, and it’s not over.” – Darrell Pittman

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