Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
On Wednesday night, John Lindsey, a 33-year-old who has played in the minor leagues since 1995, made his major league debut with the Dodgers. Joe Torre sent the right-handed Lindsey to the plate, but the Padres responded by sending in righty reliever Luke Gregerson, and Torre promptly called Lindsey back to the dugout and placed the bat in Andre Ethier's hands.
Since Lindsey was announced, he officially made an appearance, but he was not given a plate appearance. His career stats to date: 1 game, 0 everything else. Somewhere there's a list of the least consequential careers in baseball, and as it currently stands, Lindsey shares company with one man. And, no, it's not Moonlight Graham.
Graham is the player we usually think of when we're discussing brief, inconsequential careers, but let's remember that while Graham didn't make a defensive play during his half-inning in right field, he at least got to stand on the field for a few minutes.
Allow me to introduce you to Ray Shook. Shook made his lone major league appearance in 1916, and like Lindsey, he did not receive a plate appearance, or pitch, or field. He gets a "1" on the career games register. Every single other statistic is a goose egg.
Shook never made another appearance in the majors; hopefully Lindsey will get another shot. Video of his appearance, which you can see here, features Vin Scully running through his minor league resume for a solid 25 seconds before announcing that he was heading back to the bench. It's similar to the Jimmy Kimmel/Matt Damon incident...
...the difference being that Lindsey really seemed to take it in stride.
"It was exciting," said Lindsey, [...] I was waiting for this all my life and I was a lot cooler and calmer than I thought."
Honest respect to Lindsey for being a good sport about it, and snark-saturated respect to Lindsey for managing to walk from the dugout to the batter's box without tripping, falling, and flailing his limbs around on the ground while awaiting a stretcher. When I was nine years old I got to run the bases after a minor league baseball game, and I think I said the exact same thing.
Read more about the Dodgers at SB Nation's Dodgers blog, True Blue LA.
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