Aug 5, 2006

Earl on mindless web-surfing

Spent the day engaged in one of my more mindless bouts of web-surfing.

I was trying to find some minor-league statistics for a guy who played for the Columbus Confederate Yankees (oxymoron alert!) in the Southern League back in 1964-1966. Don't even ask why, but it involves a young lady that has caught my eye.

Anyway, seems as if the ole' internet hasn't quite caught up to my need for Class AA minor-league stats from before I was born. Sad. Well, not as sad as me spending an afternoon searching for said stats, but sad nonetheless.

One interesting tidbit I found is about a player named John Paciorek. He was the older brother of MLer Tom Paciorek who enjoyed a cup o' coffee in the bigs on one fateful day in 1963 for the Houston Colt 45's.

John's line in that game was as follows:

AB H R 2B 3B HR RBI BB SB AVG OBP SLG
3 3 4 0 0 0 3 2 0 1.000 1.000 1.000

Due to chronic back problems, the poor guy was never to play in the major league again. But what a day!

John isn't the only player to have a go at it in the bigs for just one day. Over 1,300 players enjoy this dubious honor. The most famous is probably Archibald "Moonlight" Graham who was a character central to the book "Shoeless Joe" and the movie it was adapted from "Field of Dreams".

So carpe diem, everyone! John Paciorek certainly did!

3 comments:

Kat said...

Welp...me knows nuttin' 'bout baseball 'cept hows to play. But I'm just so proud you're finally on your own so I had to post anyhoo *wink*

elizabeth said...

I like baseball. It's the ONLY sport I will actually go out of my way to go to once and a while - and the beer always tastes better in the stadium.
Field of Dreams was a great movie.

Verdant Earl said...

Field of Dreams was great, but The Natural and Bull Durham are my favorite baseball flicks of all time.

Very different too! The Natural was all mythology while Bull Durham reeked of authenticity.

"God, I love baseball!" - Roy Hobbs