He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman and left fielder from 1966 to 1984, most prominently as a member of the Houston Astros where he was a two-time All-Star player.

Watson had a .295 batting average over a career that also saw him play for the Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, and the Atlanta Braves.

Fremont won the 1963 city championship; Watson's high school teammates included future major-leaguers Willie Crawford and Bobby Tolan.

Nicknamed "Bull",[2] Watson converted to first base and the outfield by the time he made his major league debut with the Astros on September 9, 1966.

[5] Watson was a dependable hitter whose home run numbers were somewhat hurt by the fact that he played the majority of his career in the Astrodome, which had a reputation for being a pitcher-friendly ballpark.

[7] On June 13, 1979, the Astros traded Watson to the Red Sox in exchange for Pete Ladd, cash, and a player to be named later[8] (who turned out to be Bobby Sprowl).

[2] With the Yankees, he reached the post-season for the first time in his career, losing to the Kansas City Royals in the 1980 American League Championship Series.

Watson scored from second base on a three-run homer by teammate Milt May at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.

Despite the lack of in-game urgency, Watson ran at full speed, reaching home plate approximately four seconds before Dave Concepción, who had just homered in Cincinnati and was also racing around the basepaths.

[22] At the end of the 1993 season, Watson was named general manager of the Astros, becoming the second African American (following the Atlanta Braves' Bill Lucas) to serve as a GM in the major leagues.

Under his watch, MLB mandated that managers could no longer wear a team issued pullover instead of a uniform jersey top.

This caused particular friction between MLB and Red Sox manager Terry Francona, who prefers to wear a pullover due to circulation problems.

"[26]During the second inning of a Red Sox-Yankees game on August 28, an MLB representative arrived to verify that Francona was wearing a uniform jersey.

The Boston media saw this as frivolous, or even biased, due to the public's alleged indifference toward the issue, the specific use of Francona as an example, and the fact that the representative appeared during an important in-division matchup.

[2] While playing for Houston, Watson, along with several teammates, had a cameo appearance in the 1977 movie The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training.

[2][29] In 1999, Watson completed a Bachelor of Science degree with a concentration in sports management at New York's Empire State College.