Forgotten Royals: Pat Putnam

In this edition of, Wait, that guy played for the Royals? We look at the career of Pat Putnam.

Putnam was a native of that baseball hotbed Bethel, Vermont, a picturesque village of 1,900 people. Amazingly, Putnam was the third major leaguer to come out of Bethel, following Harry Burrell (who was an extended member of Putnam’s mother’s family) and Heinie Stafford. If a small town in cold-weather Vermont puts out three big leaguers, that qualifies it as a hotbed. The Putnam family moved to Fort Myers when Pat was eight, which certainly accelerated his baseball development. Putnam was a sweet-swinging, left-handed hitting first baseman who played collegiately at the University of South Alabama,…