U. L. Washington
American baseball player
U. L. Washington (October 27, 1953 – March 3, 2024) was an American professional baseball player and coach. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1977 to 1987 for the Kansas City Royals, Montreal Expos, and Pittsburgh Pirates. Washington played mostly as a shortstop during his career and was well known for having a toothpick in the corner of his mouth while on the field and at the plate.
Early life
Washington was born in Stringtown, Oklahoma, one of 11 children born to Ora Lee and George Washington Jr. The U and L are Washington's legal given name and were not initials of other names.
Washington attended Stringtown High School, graduating in 1971. He attended nearby Murray State College and played college baseball for the Aggies for one season.
Playing career
Kansas City Royals
After one year at Murray State, Washington joined the Kansas City Royals Baseball Academy after his older brother, James, convinced Royals general manager Lou Gorman to give him a tryout. Washington is one of only three MLB players, along with Ron Washington (no relation) and Frank White who are products of the Royals Academy.
Washington played for the Royals from 1977 through 1984.
“U. L. Washington” enters the record as american baseball player. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Washington, American and baseball can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“U. L. Washington” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Washington, American and baseball provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7876219. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 2024, 1977 and 1987.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “U. L. Washington” 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.