Ed Brinkman - Youth in Cincinnati

Youth in Cincinnati

Brinkman was a high school teammate of Pete Rose at Cincinnati's Western Hills High School. Paul "Pappy" Nohr, the baseball coach at Western Hills, described Rose as "a good ball player, not a Brinkman." (David M. Jordan, "Pete Rose: A Biography," p. 6) Based on their performance in high school, scouts saw Brinkman rather than Rose as the future superstar. When he was a senior, Ed batted .460 and also won 15 games as a pitcher. Brinkman was paid a large (for the time) bonus of $75,000 by the Washington Senators in 1959. Brinkman later said: "Pete always kidded me that the Washington Senators brought me my bonus in an armored truck. Pete said he had cashed his at the corner store." (David M. Jordan, "Pete Rose: A Biography," p. 7)

According to retrosheet site, he was signed in 1961 as an amateur free agent by the Washington Senators, which would have been the expansion team; the team that was the Washington Senators in 1959 moved to Minnesota during the 1960-1961 offseason.