finalyear bats birth_place debutyear finaldate statvalue position finalteam statlabel debutdate birth_date article_title debutteam name throws
1972 left brooklyn , new york 1972 october 1 .300 1 7 outfielder california angels batting average home runs rbi august 15 2 august 1944 chris coletta
 california angels chris coletta left
chris coletta

christopher michael coletta -lrb- born august 2 , 1944 , in brooklyn , new york -rrb- is a retired professional baseball player -lrb- corner outfielder -rrb- who played one season for the california angels of major league baseball .
coletta was also with the boston red sox organization and had an impressive career in the international league .
he played for the now defunct louisville colonels -- the aaa farm club for boston at that time .
he was teammates with -lrb- among others -rrb- carlton fisk and jim lonborg during that period of his career .
in fact , coletta was in the red sox minor-league system for ten seasons -lrb- 1963 -- 72 -rrb- -- from age 18 to age 28 .
in 1963 , he hit .312 for waterloo -lrb- class a -rrb- .
in 1964 , he hit .326 for winston-salem -lrb- class a -rrb- .
promoted to class aa in 1965 , he hit .318 for pittsfield -- then in 1966 , he hit .311 for pittsfield .
during these four seasons , his on-base percentage was around .400 , and his slugging percentage always over .435 -- all healthy numbers given the low offensive output of the era .
after a poor season in 1967 , he hit .314 for savannah -lrb- class aa -rrb- in 1968 , at which point he was finally promoted to the class aaa louisville team .
coletta then was stuck in aaa louisville for four seasons despite some superb statistics -- he hit .294 in 1969 , .332 in 1970 , .311 in 1971 , and .319 in 1972 -lrb- with on-base percentages around .400 , and slugging percentages around .450 -rrb- .
in mid-august 1972 , about a week after turning 28 years old , coletta was finally liberated from the -lrb- at the time -rrb- dysfunctional red sox organization -- he was traded to the angels for andy kosco -- so that the red sox could employ a journeyman -lrb- kosco -rrb- in their -lrb- failed -rrb- attempt to win the al east that year .
in his month-and-a-half stint with the angels , colleta hit .300 .
his ops + -lrb- on-base percentage plus slugging percentage normalized to the league average -rrb- was 130 , meaning his performance was 30 % better than the league average .
because 1972 was such a poor season for batting in general -lrb- remember that the dh was instituted in the al the next year because scoring was down so much -rrb- , translating coletta 's batting average to an `` average '' season -lrb- average ballpark , average runs scored , etc. -rrb- , coletta would have hit .353 under those circumstances .
on august 20 , in a game at tiger stadium in detroit , coletta managed a rare feat by banging out two hits in the same inning -lrb- top of the fourth -rrb- .
on september 24 , his 8th-inning homer off jim perry broke a 1-1 tie and provided the winning margin in the angels 2-1 win over the twins -lrb- in what turned out to be his second-to-last major league at bat -rrb- .
for the month and a half , coletta got 31 plate appearances and hit that one homer and had 7 rbi .
pro-rated over a full season -lrb- 600 plate appearances -rrb- , this would equate to 19 hrs and 135 rbis .
despite this rather impressive showing , the angels sent him back to the minors in 1973 .
given that he was turning 29 that year -lrb- which was old for a player at that time -rrb- , they thought he was too old to invest much time on .
he was traded to the phillies organization later that season , and then after being released , played for the red sox organization again .
in his final four minor league seasons -lrb- 1973 -- 76 -rrb- , coletta hit .284 , .306 , .271 , and .273 .
