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This Day In D.C. Baseball History - November 26, 1962: Lou Piniella Drafted By Washington Senators.

An 18-year-old Tampa, Florida-born Lou Piniella signed as an amateur free agent with Cleveland on June 9, 1962. The 6'0'', 180 lb OF/1B hit 10 doubles, five triples and eight home runs in 70 games and 294 plate appearances with the Alabama-Florida League's Selma Cloverleafs in the Indians' system before he was selected by the Washington Senators on November 26th in the 1962 First-Year Draft. The Mickey Vernon-led '62 Senators that finished 10th (last) in the American League that season took two players in that year's First-Year draft, selecting 21-year-old outfielder Brant Alyea from the Cincinnati Reds' system before taking Piniella.

"Sweet Lou" played 143 games and hit in 170 of 548 at bats (.310 AVG) with 29 doubles, four triples and 16 home runs for Hampton, Virginia's and the Class-A Carolina League's Peninsula Senators in 1963. On August 4th 1964, a then-20-year-old Piniella was traded to the Baltimore Orioles as the player-to-be-named-later in a March 31st deal for Orioles' right-hander Leslie Ferdinand "Buster" Narum. The 23-year-old pitcher would go (14-27) over four years with the Senators, posting a 4.45 ERA in 89 games, 58 starts and 387.2 IP over which he walked 172 (3.99 BB/9) and K'd 215 (4.99 K/9).

Buster Narum, who played his last major league game for the Senators in 1967, retired from baseball two years later, after a year in the Senators' system and one with the St. Louis Cardinals' organization. Narum's claim to fame, surprising since he's remembered as a dreadful hitter (7 for 118, .059 lifetime) is that he was the first Baltimore Oriole to hit a HR in his first at bat. Two more of the six hits he'd collect over the rest of his career left the yard too.

Lou Piniella would debut with the Baltimore Orioles in 1964, but he played in just four games and made only one plate appearance at the Major League level with the O's spending most of the '64 season and all of 1965 in the Minors for the Orioles before the Cleveland Indians reacquired him in March of 1966. Piniella would then be drafted by the Seattle Pilots and traded to the Kansas City Royals. After winning the AL Rookie of the Year in 1969 and playing five seasons for Kansas City, a 1973 trade sent him to the New York Yankees. Piniella retired in 1984 after 18 major league seasons and two World Series titles with the Yankees in 1977 and '78.

Two years later he'd return to manage the Yankees, beginning a 23-year-career as a major league manager.