Chosing sides
(Norman Rockwell illustration)
The newly born Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators go about stocking their rosters 65 years ago today in the 1960 American League expansion draft.
Historians note that the Angels, with the first pick, select 27-year-old pitcher Eli Grba from the New York Yankees with the Senators following by taking another Yankee pitcher in Bobby Shantz, a well-traveled 36 year old.
Shantz travels even more just two days later as the Senators repackage him to Pittsburgh in return for pitcher Bennie Daniels and a pair of first basemen in Harry Bright and RC Stevens.
In all, the Angels and Senators 65 years ago today each select 31 players with most of them already past their prime, if they ever have a prime at all.
Jim Fregosi
The best pick of the draft turns out to be a teenager as the Angels, with the 33rd overall pick, pluck an 18-year-old shortstop named Jim Fregosi from the Boston Red Sox.
Fregosi goes to become a six-time American League All-Star and Gold Glove winner with the Angels before they trade him after the 1971 season to the New York Mets in a deal that brings them a raw, but promising pitcher in future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.
But we digress.
Like all of the expansion drafts that follow, the inaugural seasons for the Angels and Senators are losing ones in 1961.
The Angels finish eighth in the 10-team American League with a record of 70-91, while the Senators tie the equally woebegone Kansas City Athletics for ninth place at 61-100.
The Senators, who emerge as an expansion team after their predecessors from Washington bolt for Minnesota after the 1960 season, enjoy only one winning season over the next 11 summers before D.C. once again sees its team move – this time in 1972 to suburban Dallas to become the Texas Rangers.
The Angels quickly become a winning team in just their second season and have remained in Anaheim since their start, although the name changes a few times from the Los Angeles Angels to the California Angels to the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and, finally in 2016, back to the original Los Angeles Angels.
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