Japanese star Shohei Ohtani was the talk of this off-season before he agreed to sign as a free agent with the Los Angeles Angels. Ohtani is supposedly a very good hitter and a very good pitcher and he wants to do both in MLB. Since he has not played in a regular season game in the majors yet we still have to wait and see if he can pull it off or if he can play in the majors at all for that matter. For all the talk of Shohei Ohtani being the best two-way prospect ever, Ken Brett came first. He was a phenom on the mound and in center field before he became a journeyman.
Ken Brett, the older brother of Hall of Fame Kansas City Royals third baseman George Brett was at one time a pitcher for the Minnesota Twins and nine other big league teams including the team that drafted him number one and fourth overall in the 1966 June amateur draft. The California Angels drafted and signed Ken Brett to pitch, almost every other team had they drafted Ken Brett would have made him a center fielder. The Twins took a chance on the free agent Ken Brett when he was released by the Angels and signed him on April 30, 1979, Brett appeared in just nine games as a Twins pitcher, all in relief and he was released on June 4, 1979 and his Twins career was over with no wins or losses and a 4.97 ERA. “Kemer” as Ken Brett was known to his friends was off to join his next team, the Los Angeles Dodgers.
This all leads into a great piece that Joe Posnanski wrote yesterday about Ken Brett called Before Ohtani, there was Ken Brett and I will let you read it for yourself. Posnanski is a wonderful writer and storyteller so don’t pass this one by. It will also help you to remember a one time Twins player who passed away from brain cancer just like his father before him. You can also read the SABR Bio on Ken Brett here.