By now anyone who is into recent baseball history, more
specifically the June amateur draft, knows that there has only been one
player that was TWICE drafted #1 overall on two separate occasions:
Danny Goodwin.
In 1971, Goodwin was the overall #1 pick by the Chicago White Sox
as a catcher out of Peoria Central High School in Illinois, but he
decided to pursue a college career instead, leaving Chicago high and dry
as he went off to Southern University and A&M
College in Louisiana, alma mater of Hall of Famer Lou Brock.
For Chicago, it wasn't necessarily the biggest loss, since the
first round of the 1971 draft only yielded one future star if the game,
Jim Rice.
However Rice went at #15, getting picked by the Boston Red Sox, so
it seems highly probable that the White Sox would have picked some other
relative "bust" had they not chosen Goodwin.
Just as a point of reference, the players picked between #2 and #5:
Jay Franklin, Tommy Bianco, Condredge Holloway (what a name!), and Roy
Branch.
See what I mean?
Anyway, after four years at college, Goodwin still impressed scouts
enough that the California Angels decided to pick him #1 again in the
1975 draft (which will be profiled in the near future right here).
Sadly for the Angels, it was also a wasted pick, as Goodwin never did pan out on the big league level.
All told, between the years 1975 and 1982 Goodwin averaged about 45
games a season for the Angels, Twins and A's, mainly as a designated
hitter, ending up with a .236 lifetime average and 13 home runs to go
along with 81 runs batted in.
He DID have some kick-ass seasons in the minors, but just couldn't continue that performance in the Majors.
He even managed to get a season in Japan in 1986, playing for
Nankai, but only batted .231 with eight homers and 26 ribbies in 83
games, and called it a career.
In 2011 Goodwin was honored as the very first college player from a
historically black university to be elected to the National College
Baseball Hall of Fame after his stellar college career between 1971 and
1975.
Goodwin will always be that trivia answer regarding his two #1
picks in '71 and '75, and today I present my second design for the
imagined 1979 sub-set of #1 overall draft picks of the 1970's, following
my Mike Ivie design, who went #1 in 1970.
Keep and eye out for my next post on this thread, 1972's #1 pick Dave Roberts, coming soon.
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| The first of his two #1 pick years... |