{"id":799601,"date":"2026-09-08T08:49:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/799601\/"},"modified":"2026-09-08T08:49:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:49:37","slug":"pat-putnam-dies-rangers-mariners-twins-first-baseman-was-72","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/799601\/","title":{"rendered":"Pat Putnam dies; Rangers, Mariners, Twins first baseman was 72"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Pat Putnam, who played for three teams over eight <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebiglead.com\/category\/mlb\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">MLB<\/a> seasons, died Aug. 25 according to a report in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.floridaweekly.com\/articles\/fort-myers-ae\/before-the-scouts-came-there-was-putnam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Florida Weekly<\/a> on Sunday, Sept. 6. He was 72.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the report, Putnam died of natural causes. Andy Hill, who played with Putnam in Fort Myers (Fla.) Little League and remained friends with him into adulthood, said a neighbor found Putnam in his bedroom.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Putnam played 677 games for the Texas Rangers (1977-82), Seattle Mariners (1983-84) and Minnesota Twins (1984). He retired with a .255 batting average, 63 home runs and 255 RBIs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebiglead.com\/yankees-rollie-sheldon-cause-of-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Yankees World Series champion who finished career with Red Sox dies<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The New York Mets drafted Putnam out of Miami-Dade College,\u00a0but he didn\u2019t sign. After Putnam transferred to the University of South Alabama, the Texas Rangers\u00a0selected him\u00a022nd overall in\u00a01975.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Playing for the\u00a0Asheville Tourists in\u00a0the Class A\u00a0Western Carolinas League in 1976, Putnam hit\u00a0.361 with 24\u00a0home runs and\u00a0142 RBIs. That gave him\u00a0the league\u2019s first\u00a0Triple Crown. He\u00a0was also named\u00a0the league\u2019s Player\u00a0of the Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In 1979, his first full big league season, Putnam hit .277 with 18 homers and 64 RBIs in 139 games for the Rangers. He collected downballot votes in the American League Rookie of the Year race, and finished fourth.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebiglead.com\/red-sox-manager-joe-morgan-cause-of-death\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Red Sox announce death of former manager<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Rangers traded Putnam to the Mariners in December 1982 for Ron Musselman. He\u00a0hit\u00a0.269 with 19\u00a0homers and 67\u00a0RBI\u00a0in 1983, his first season in Seattle. His\u00a0teammates <a href=\"https:\/\/sabr.org\/bioproj\/person\/pat-putnam\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">selected him<\/a>\u00a0as the team\u2019s\u00a0MVP.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">An August 1984 trade to the Minnesota Twins dropped Putnam into a division title race, but the Twins fell short  in the end. Putnam spent the entire 1985 season with the Kansas City Royals\u2019 Triple-A affiliate. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With his major league career effectively over, Putnam signed with\u00a0the Nippon-Ham\u00a0Fighters, and slugged 27 home runs over two seasons (1986-87) in Japan\u2019s top league.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After returning to the United States, Putnam eventually retired from the baseball industry altogether. He settled in Fort Myers, where he <a href=\"https:\/\/sabr.org\/bioproj\/person\/pat-putnam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">owned a business<\/a> that specialized in air and water purification.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thebiglead.com\/subscribe\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Enjoy free coverage of the top news &amp; trending stories with The Big Lead Newsletter<\/a> \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pat Putnam, who played for three teams over eight MLB seasons, died Aug. 25 according to a report&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2393],"tags":[5,55,60,4,97799,149,65,1567,69,3240],"class_list":["post-799601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas-rangers","tag-baseball","tag-kansas-city-royals","tag-minnesota-twins","tag-mlb","tag-pat-putnam","tag-rangers","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-texas","tag-texas-rangers","tag-texasrangers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117234562737922183","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}