Walt Bond Obituary

Walt Bond Obituary

Baseball Almanac presents the actual word-for-word transcript from the obituary of Walt Bond, taken from and courtesy of The New York Times.

"My reasoning was that the home run signal influenced (Walt) Bond's running and he was misled by the signal and should not be penalized. If the protest had been formally lodged and reached my office and no different facts presented, I feel sure I would have allowed it and resumed play with Bond on second base in place of being declared out at third." - National League President Warren Giles in Baseball Digest (August 2003)

Walt Bond Obituary

WALTER BOND, 29, EX-FIRST BASEMAN

HOUSTON, Sept. 15 (AP) — Walter Bond, a former major league first baseman, died of leukemia yesterday in Methodist Hospital. He was 29 years old.

Bond, 6-foot-6 inch, 215 pounder, had his best major league season in 1964 when he drove in 85 runs for the Houston Astros and hit 20 home runs. He also had 7 triples, 16 doubles and finished the year with a .254 average.

The 85 runs batted in was a Houston club record until it was broken this year by Jimmy Wynn.

Bond was traded by the Astros to the Minnesota Twins organization early in 1966. He was sent to Denver, where he had a good year as a pinch hitter and part-time outfielder and first baseman. He was called up by the Twins and remained about a month and was released.

The Astros had purchased Bond from the Cleveland organization in 1963. He had played the previous season at Jacksonville in the International League. Bond played briefly with the Cleveland Indians in 1960, 1961 and 1962.

He is survived by his widow, Lynette.

Walt Bond Obituary

Walt Bond was released by the Minnesota Twins in 1966 and was playing with Jacksonville (IL) when he went on the inactive list because of his leukemia.

On September 19, 1962,Walt Bond and Johnny Romano twice hit back-to-back home runs for the Cleveland Indians to help defeat the Athletics 10–9. They also both hit doubles - a major league first when added to the back-to-back jacks.

Did you know that the Walt Bond hit his first major league home run on April 23, 1960 against Bob Trowbridge.

Copyright © 2000-2008. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy. Design by Geisler Young. Hosted by Hosting 4 Less.
Part of the Baseball Almanac family: 755 Home Runs | Baseball Box Scores | Baseball Fever | Today in Baseball History.