George Brunet

Career

George Brunet, a native of Houghton, Michigan, went to Calumet High School in the same state. In 1952, former pitcher and Detroit Tigers scout Schoolboy Rowe signed him. After three seasons pitching in the Sooner State League, the Tigers let him go. He then joined the Kansas City Athletics in 1955 and got his first major league call-up the following year.

His debut came on September 14, 1956, against the Washington Senators, where he threw a scoreless inning in a 4-1 defeat. In his second big-league outing, he faced the Boston Red Sox with the bases loaded and Ted Williams at the plate; Brunet induced Williams to ground into a double play. That season, he appeared in six games, starting one, and finished with a 7.00 ERA.

For the next three years, Brunet toiled in the minors, with brief stints in the majors in 1957 and 1959. In 1957, pitching for the Double-A Little Rock Travelers, he went 14-15 with a 3.42 ERA and a league-best 235 strikeouts over 33 games, 31 of them starts. At one point his record was 10-3, but over a stretch of more than fifty innings where his teammates failed to score a single run for him, it dropped to 10-11. One of his two 1959 major league appearances came on April 22 against the Chicago White Sox.

He entered in the seventh inning with the bases loaded and five runs already across, the result of shaky pitching and sloppy defense—five walks and three errors. Brunet then walked the first two batters he faced, hit the next one, walked three more, and finally got Jim Landis to ground back to the mound. That inning, the White Sox scored eleven runs on just one hit.

Milwaukee Braves

Brunet finally cracked Kansas City’s opening day roster in 1960, but a month later he was traded to the Milwaukee Braves for Bob Giggie. The Braves initially sent him to the Louisville Colonels, but after going 4-1 with a 0.78 ERA in seven games (five starts), he was quickly recalled. With the Braves that season, he posted a 2-0 record and a 5.07 ERA across 17 games, six of them starts.

He began 1961 in the majors as well, but after just one appearance, an appendectomy sidelined him. When he returned that June, he made four appearances before being sent down to the Triple-A Vancouver Mounties, where he stayed for the rest of the year. On May 16, 1962, the Braves traded him to the Houston Colt .45’s for minor league pitcher Ben Johnson.