• THE GEORGETOWN BASKETBALL HISTORY PROJECT

Hank Bertrand (1936-1938)
 

The first Georgetown player to have transferred from (and back to) the same university over his four years of college, Hank Bertrand arrived at Georgetown from St. Lawrence University and played one season on the freshman team and two seasons on the Georgetown varsity as a backup center to Mike Petrosky, averaging 2.7 points per game.

Originally from Tupper Lake, NY, Bertrand played basketball on his high school team and a prep year at the Riordan School in Highland, NY before enrolling at St. Lawrence and, soon thereafter, Georgetown.

Bertrand also backed up Petrosky on the diamond, where he was a member of the Georgetown rotations of 1937 and 1938. The two hurlers combined for a one hitter in the 1937 season opener, a 31-0 walkover of Western Maryland called by the coaches after six innings. The 1937 Hoyas completed the season with an abbreviated 10-0 record, and the two pitchers led the Hoyas to a 12-4 mark in 1938.

Bertrand did not return for his senior year, following an injury in the spring. "A grievous blow was dealt the team last week when it was made known that Hank Bertrand, stellar pitching ace of the Hoya mound staff, would probably be unable to pitch at all this season due to a sudden internal ailment," wrote the HOYA.

"Hank Bertrand, promising Hoya pitcher who dropped out of school last spring, is at St. Lawrence and will play varsity baseball for that college next year," wrote the Washington Post. He played only one season of baseball at St. Lawrence, following which he was signed to a minor league contract by the Washington Senators, who likely recalled his prowess at Georgetown. Bertrand was assigned to the Salisbury Senators, a struggling club of the class D Eastern Shore League. Hoping to raise some interest, Bertrand was repackaged in a way that that was as much professional wrestling as professional baseball.

"Salisbury's Indians may be a fifth-place club in a class D league, but they outrank the New York Yankees socially: they claim the only nobleman in organized baseball," reads an Associated Press article. "His title is Count Henri S. Bertrand De La Vigne, lineal descendant of a noble French house dating back to 1390 and the great-great-grand-son of Napoleon's aid de camp at Austerlitz," they wrote.

"But it adds up to just plain Hank Bertrand, leading pitcher for the in-and-out Indians. Young Hank was signed by Clark Griffith after hanging up a record of 23 wins and 2 losses at Georgetown University, then farmed to Salisbury in May," the article continued.

Nicknamed "The Count Of Three And Two", Bertrand won nine games early in the season but finished 14-9 and was not retained at season's end. Drafted into military service, Bertrand served as an officer in the U.S. Army over the next three decades, with service in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He died in Minneapolis, MN in 1994 at the age of 82 and is buried at the nearby Ft. Snelling National Military Cemetery.

Season GP GS Min FG FGA % 3FG 3GA % FT FTA % Off Reb Avg PF Ast Blk Stl Pts Avg
1936-37 17 44 2.5
1937-38 15 41 2.8
Totals 32 85 2.7