Bill Kelso
American baseball player (1940-2009)
William Eugene Kelso (February 19, 1940 – May 11, 2009) was an American professional baseball player who played four seasons for the Los Angeles/California Angels and Cincinnati Reds of Major League Baseball.
Early life
A multi-sport athlete at North Kansas City High School in Kansas City, Missouri from which he graduated in 1958, he was a three-year letter-winner in baseball, football and basketball and earned one letter in track. He was all-state his senior year in both football and basketball. He was on the 1957 basketball team that reached the Missouri state finals. He was also a member of amateur baseball's Ban Johnson League Hall of Fame.
Career
He earned a scholarship to the University of Kansas and while attending there he was signed by the Los Angeles Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1962. He was drafted by the Angels in the December 1963 Rule 5 draft. He made his major-league debut at age 24 on July 31, 1964. Pitching in relief of starter Aubrey Gatewood against the Boston Red Sox, Kelso entered the game in the fifth inning and struck out the first batter he faced, Frank Malzone. In 2.2 innings, he game up no runs and one hit with two strikeouts and three walks in the 4-3 Angels loss at Dodger Stadium.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bill Kelso” is american baseball player (1940-2009). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bill, Kelso and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4909693. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1940, 2009, 1958 and 1957.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bill Kelso” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.