Tune In, Turn On, Dropo Out

Walt Dropo, UConn ‘s best non-women’s-basketball-playing athlete, has died at the age of 87. Dropo won the 1950 AL Rookie of the Year award with the Red Sox, hitting .322, with 34 homers and 144 R.B.I. in 136 games – no player would average an RBI a game for a full season again until George Brett in 1980. A broken wrist the following spring cemented Dropo’s status as a one-year wonder, though he remained a productive major leaguer for 13 years and entered the record books in 1952 with the Tigers by recording hits in 12 consecutive at-bats. Dropo died just 3 weeks after 1951 AL Rookie of the Year Gil McDougald.