One and Done

Chuck Lindstrom and John Paciorek had fabulous major league debuts. On the last day of the season for their respective clubs, each player reached base every time they made a plate appearance. Both players would end up retiring with a lifetime major league batting average of 1.000. Why? They never got another shot in the majors after their first games.

Hall of Fame third baseman Freddie Lindstrom wasn’t even the first member of his own family to be celebrated at Cooperstown. Twenty-two years before Lindstrom got his own plaque, his son, Chuck, was honored at Cooperstown for winning the 1954 American Legion Player of the Year before the hall inducted Joe Cronin and Hank Greenberg. A little over four years later, Chuck was playing on a big league field like his father. Too bad it was only a one-time thing.

The same year his father retired from the major leagues, Charles William Lindstrom was born in Chicago in 1936. While his other siblings chose interests of their own, Chuck followed his dad’s footsteps in baseball. After a successful youth baseball career as a catcher, Lindstrom wanted to become professional right out of high school. However, he was talked out of it by Freddie, who was the head coach of baseball at Northwestern University at the time. Chuck decided to join dad at the University where in three seasons he set many batting records that still stand today.

After Lindstrom called it a college career in 1957, the Chicago White Sox signed him as an amateur free agent. After a season and a half in the minors, White Sox manager Al Lopez called up Lindstrom for the last two weeks of the season. At the time, Chicago was on the verge of elimination from the post-season and Lopez had called up a few younger players to give them some experience at the end of the season. For his first days in a major league uniform, Lindstrom caught batting practice and filled out scorecards on the bench.

On the last day of the 1958 season, Lopez told Lindstrom he would play in the final game against the Kansas City Athletics. Chuck phoned both of his parents, who were living in Chicago, and the Lindstroms would be among the 4,174 fans that day in Comiskey Park. In the top of the fifth, Lindstrom would enter his first career major league game, replacing starter Johnny Romano behind the plate. Chuck’s first inning didn’t go too smoothly as he allowed a passed ball. Thankfully for the home side, the mistake did not lead to any Kansas City runs.

Lindstrom’s first career plate appearance came in the sixth, when he led of the inning with a walk. He would come around that inning and score the White Sox’s seventh run of the game on a Don Mueller single. That put Chicago up by three runs. In the bottom of the seventh, Lindstrom strolled to the plate for his second at-bat. Never did he think it was going to be the last one he ever had at a major league stadium.

With two outs and a man on first, the patient Lindstrom worked A’s pitcher Bob Davis to a 3-1 count. Looking for a fastball the whole way on the fifth pitch, Lindstrom got one over the heart of the plate and smacked it off the wall in right-field. He slid into third base safely for his first and only major league hit in his first and only major league official at-bat.

During the 1960 spring training, Lindstrom failed to crack either the White Sox roster or the team’s Triple-A affiliate’s roster. He bounced around the minor-leagues for a few more seasons before retiring from baseball in 1962 and doing exactly what his father did after retirement, becoming a head coach at a college. Lindstrom stayed on as the manager at Lincoln College for 23 years, taking a club in its second year of existence when he started to a 29-10 record only 10 years later. The winning percentage Lindstrom’s team posted in 1972 is still the best in school history.

An Even Better Debut and Final Game

Five years and a day after Lindstrom’s ‘one and done’ debut, another player was called up to make his debut on the last day of the season. Two days before John Paciorek was called up to the majors, Houston Colt .45s manager Harry Croft fielded an all-rookie lineup . Maybe Houston’s commitment to youth resulted in Paciorek’s call-up because his statistics certainly didn’t: He hit a measly .219 for Class-A Modesto during the 1963 season before getting called up in September.

Paciorek was born in Detroit, Michigan on February 11 ^th , 1945. His family would later move to Hamtramck, where John would become all-state in football, basketball and baseball during his high school years. Baseball was in the family’s blood as John’s two younger brothers, Tom and Jim, both became major leaguers at one point in their careers. Tom played 17 seasons in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and Jim played 48 games for the Milwaukee Brewers in 1987.

The Polo Grounds was the place of Paciorek’s major league debut. Croft penciled the 18-year-old in the seventh position in the batting order, and in right field. Less than 4,000 spectators watched the National League’s two worst teams close out the regular season on a warm, fall day in New York. On his first appearance of the afternoon, Paciorek drew a walk and scored on a John Bateman triple that inning to open up the scoring as Houston took an early 2-0 lead.

In the bottom of the fourth, Mets pitcher Larry Bearnarth loaded the bases before Paciorek stepped up the plate. Paciorek jumped on a Bearnarth pitch and drove in two runs on a single to left-field. He would also score that inning on a sacrifice fly as Houston tallied five runs in the inning to reclaim their lead at 7-4. The very next inning, Paciorek notched another single and RBI to jumpstart a four-run Colt .45 inning, and after 4 ½ innings, Houston was up 11-4.

Paciorek walked in the 6 ^th and singled in the 8 ^th to finish the day for Houston. His final line was three hits in three at-bats with two walks, four runs scored, and three RBIs. The Houston Press called John a ‘cinch to make the major leagues’ and he was named the AP’s Player of the Day.

What the media and Houston fans did not know about Paciorek was he had lingering back issues. In 1964, Paciorek was projected to be the starting centerfielder for Houston but issues with his back caused the Colt .45s to send him down to the Durham Bulls, one of the teams Single-A affiliates. Paciorek bounced around from city to city between 1964 and 1969, progressing only as far as Double-A in his final year before calling it a career.

It might be the single greatest debut by a player who was never to be heard from again at the major league level. After he finished his baseball career, Paciorek enrolled at the University of Houston and finished his education. After, he and his wife moved to Southern California where the couple raised six children; three boys and three girls. His oldest son, John Paul played a few seasons of baseball at USC before hanging up his cleats to concentrate on his academics. His other sons, Pete and Mack, had careers in the minor leagues.

As for John himself, he has been a Physical Education teacher at a San Gabriel high school for 34 years and counting. In July 2008, Paciorek started writing a weekly column on a baseball blog called Dugout Central .