MASN: Wood: Looking back at Don Lock

Don Lock always looked as if he had proudly volunteered to walk point at the Second Battle of Quang Tri.

After a strong start at Triple-A Richmond in 1962, the Yankees traded Lock to the second-year Senators for veteran first baseman/pinch hitter Dale Long on July 11. (I thought it was cool at the time that they’d traded two players with the same initials.) Long had been drafted from the Yankees in the December 1960 expansion draft, and they wanted him back for his bat off the bench. Lock made his debut on July 17 against the White Sox in Chicago. He struck out his first two times up, but homered leading off the seventh. Final score that day: Washington 1, Chicago 0, as Dave Stenhouse pitched a complete game, three-hit shutout. Lock ended up with 12 major league homers that year - he’d hit 13 in Triple-A ball - and an OPS of .794.

Over the next four seasons, Lock was the everyday center fielder for Washington. For every 162 games he spent in a Senators uniform he hit 25 home runs and drove in 71, with a .240 batting average. Not great, but on a chronic second division club like the expansion Senators, extremely notable.

I own a Lock uniform, but it’s one he was issued for spring training with the 1961-62 Yankees. He signed the tail of it “On roster, never played” above his name. I’d trade it in a heartbeat for one of his Washington shirts.