Athletes - Coco Laboy

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	Athletes - Coco Laboy

Jose Alberto Laboy, (born on July 3 1939 in Ponce, Puerto Rico), was a MLB player. He was signed by the San Francisco Giants as an amateur free agent in 1959 but remained mired in the minor leagues until the 1969 expansion of major league baseball, which added two teams to both leagues. The expansion Montreal Expos' (now the Washington Nationals drafted Laboy from the St. Louis Cardinals organization.

As a 29-year old rookie, Laboy excelled at the plate. His 145 hits gave him an average of .258, and he slugged 18 home runs and drove in 83. He tied for second place with Al Oliver in the 1969 National League Rookie of the Year Award, which was won by Ted Sizemore with 14 first place votes. Both Laboy and Oliver garnered three first place votes. Of the three, Oliver had the best career (a total of 2,743 hits); Laboy was out of baseball by 1974.

In 1970, Laboy's average dropped from .258 to .199 as pitchers adjusted to him and stopped feeding him fast balls. However, he led the Expos with 26 doubles. Anxious to prove that his rookie year was not a fluke, Laboy worked out in the off-season but injured his knee in his first game of the Puerto Rican winter-league season. The injury reduced him to 151 at-bats in the 1971 season and he spent most of 1972 on the disabled list after undergoing knee surgery in March.

At 33 years old and with essentially only two full seasons behind him, it was hard to come back, particularly with the primitive state of orthopedic surgery at the time. He was released after the 1973 season and was not picked up by any other team. He ended his career with an average of .233/28/166 in 420 games. Exactly half of his RBIs were racked up in his rookie campaign.

Laboy returned to his native Puerto Rico and got a job with the government, which he served for 27 years, eventually becoming director of the commonwealth's athletic programs. He has warm memories of his time in the major leagues and of the city of Montreal, Quebec.

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