1993 was a magical season for the Philadelphia Phillies. As all fans of the team and most baseball fans know, that team of lovable, talented, boisterous misfits and outcasts did the impossible. They went worst-to-first and nearly wire-to-wire to capture a National League pennant.
That was also somewhat of a magical season for catcher Doug Lindsey, who appeared in his second season with the Phillies that year and played with two teams. Problem is, if you blinked, you missed his entire big-league career.
An Austin, Texas native, Lindsey had been the sixth round choice of the Phillies in the 1987 MLB Amateur Draft out of Seminole Community College in Sanford, Florida.
Rising incrementally through the Phillies farm system, Lindsey served as the primary catcher for Double-A Reading in the 1990 and 1991 campaigns as well as with Triple-A Scranton-Wilkes Barre in 1992.
In the final game of the 1991 season at age 23, Lindsey saw his first action in Major League Baseball when manager Jim Fregosi gave him what would turn out to be his lone big-league start. Things didn’t go well.
That afternoon, Lindsey went 0-3, striking out in all three plate appearances against Mets ace David Cone, who dominated the Phillies batters. Cone twirled a complete game three-hit shutout in a 7-0 victory for the New York Mets at Veterans Stadium.
After spending all of 1992 back in the minors he again got the call during the first week of May in 1993 when Todd Pratt, the backup to iron-man starter Darren Daulton, suffered an injury.
Lindsey would be called upon just twice, on May 1 and May 5, both times as a late-inning defensive replacement for Daulton during Phillies defeats.
On September 1, 1993 the Phillies made a deal with the Chicago White Sox in which veteran reliever Don Pall came to Philadelphia in exchange for a player to be named later. Exactly one week later that PTBNL turned out to be Lindsey.
In the Windy City, the Chisox would use him in just two late-season games as a defensive replacement for starter Ron Karkovice. He was with Chicago when they clinched the American League West Division crown and enjoyed the celebration with the team. However, Lindsey was left off the postseason roster as the White Sox were defeated in six games in the ALCS by the team that would go on to defeat the Phillies in the World Series, the Toronto Blue Jays.
Lindsey would split the 1994 season between the Triple-A affiliates of both the White Sox and Baltimore Orioles but never got another MLB opportunity.
MATT VEASEY 