While it often feels as if the amateur draft has been around as long as baseball — and for most of us under the age of fifty that’s true — the draft as we know it actually began in 1965. That first year, some notable names were in the mix, including the likes of Johnny Bench, Tom Seaver, and Nolan Ryan.
For the Detroit Tigers, who selected 13th in the first draft, it was a young catcher named Gene Lamont who was the first to be chosen. Lamont would ultimately prove himself to be a lifetime Tigers player, but largely because he only played five years professionally, and was a pretty decent catcher in that time, averaging 39% caught stealing over his five active years.