Expansion '74
14ers, Voyageurs Stock Rosters
NEW YORK (Oct. 17) - The league's two expansion teams took a big step closer to becoming a reality today, drafting their first players during a 35-round expansion draft.  The Denver 14ers selected San Francisco shortstop Tim Foli with the first overall pick, and the Montréal Voyageurs took Cleveland second baseman Don Money with the second pick.

The 14ers leaned heavily toward pitching, drafting three starting pitchers with their first six picks, including fourth overall pick Larry Christenson of Dallas.  While Denver was drafting pitchers, Montréal was snapping up high on-base percentage guys, like Washington center fielder Rich Coggins and Atlanta left fielder Greg Gross.

Three teams lost the maximum eight players to the draft, led by the Brooklyn Superbas, who accounted for eight of the first 45 picks.  Manhattan and Detroit were the other two.  Four teams (Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and St. Louis) lost only four players to the draft.  The only big-salary veterans selected were San Francisco left fielder Lou Brock (7200) by Montréal in the 27th round and Los Angeles center fielder Curt Flood (5870) with Denver's 28th pick.  Frank Linzy, a 33-year-old Atlanta reliever drafted by the Voyageurs, was the only Top 40 Player scored by either team, according to OSA scouting. The 14ers scored the highest rated prospect in SP Larry Christenson (#3), but Montréal picked up five Top-50 batting prospects: CF Rich Coggins, 1B Dan Driessen, LF Mike Easler, 2B Phil Garner, and C Jim Essian.  Montréal scores higher on the Top Prospects list--2nd in the league, in fact--but several of Denver's top players--like SP Steve Kline and 3B LF Tom Grieve--are 24 or 25, just missing the cutoff for prospect rankings.

Next up, the newlings will wait to see which players are cut from UL rosters during the arbitration and auto-renewal phases of the offseason.  Montréal will have the first overall pick in the March 1 rookie draft.
 

Age	Denver	Montréal
17-23	6	20
24-27	14	7
28-32	12	5
33+	3	3

The Morning After
Aaron, Friend Retire
CHICAGO (Oct. 13) - One day after the Colts' dramatic Game 7 victory sealed the club's second league title, two UL legends announced their retirements.  Hank Aaron, one of the circuit's all-time great sluggers, will hang up his cleats after a career spanning 19 years and over 10,000 at bats.  The first overall pick in 1954, "Hammerin' Hank" spent eight full seasons with the Colonels, six seasons with Los Angeles, and his final five with Brooklyn and Chicago.  He won a UL championship with Louisville in 1958 and the Most Valuable Player Award in 1960, and set the single season home run record with 50 in 1964.  Aaron ranks second all-time in games, at-bats and total bases, third in hits and home runs, and fourth in RBIs.  He was a bit player in the Colts' 1973 campaign, hitting .194-12-43 in 120 games, and hit just 1-for-16 in the World Series, but his lone hit was a home run in Game 7.

Bob Friend was one of the last remaining "original ULers" dating from the league's inaugural draft in 1951, when he was selected 127th overall by the New York Gothams.  The righthander from West Lafayette, Ind. spent 14 years with the Goth-Feds then bounced around between Chicago, Cleveland, Brooklyn, then back to Chicago.  One of the top pitchers in Goth-Feds history, he won 23 games in 1961 and 24 in 1963 and twice racked up over 300 strikeouts in a season.  Friend was a key cog in the two-time pennant-winning Cleveland sides in 1965 and 1967, and won 22 games in between the pennant years.  He participated on the losing side in five World Series with three different teams, before winning this year after throwing a single pitch in Game 6.  He ends his career with 271 career wins (#6) and 3,922 strikeouts, second only to Johnny Antonelli.

Friend's retirement leaves Mickey Mantle as the last active player from the 1951 inaugural draft class.  Mantle, at 18, was the youngest player selected in 1951.  The 23-year veteran is up for free agency this offseason unless St. Louis offers an extension on his $10 million contract.