Walt Bond

Who was Walt Bond?

Walter Franklin Bond was an American professional baseball player who appeared in six Major League Baseball seasons between 1960 and 1967 for the Cleveland Indians, Houston Colt .45s/Astros and Minnesota Twins. He played the last five seasons of his 11-year professional career after being diagnosed with leukemia while serving in the United States Army in 1962. The disease finally took Bond's life in the closing weeks of the 1967 baseball season — a year during which he had made the Twins' roster coming out of spring training.

The native of Denmark, Tennessee, attended Lane College; he stood 6 feet 7 inches tall and weighed 228 pounds, threw right-handed and batted left-handed. With his imposing size, he was an effective power hitter who also batted for average during his minor league career. In 1962, the year of his diagnosis, Bond batted .320 in 132 games for the Salt Lake City Bees of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. Then, in a 12-game September stint with the Indians, Bond hit six home runs in only 50 at bats, drove in 17 runs, batted .380 and slugged .800. Yet he could not make the 1963 Indians roster and spent that campaign in Triple-A.