Most - almost all, in fact - of these OotS features will be about Negro League players. But - as has been the case with John D'Acquisto, Stolmy Pimentel, Felix Pie and Ruben Quevedo - by no means are MLBers excluded. Especially when I stumble across a story as fascinating as that of
Cory Aldridge.
The son of NFL / USFL player Jerry Aldridge, Cory was born in 1979 down in San Angelo, TX. Between his debut for the Gulf Coast League Braves in 1997 and his final appearance for the 2015 Sultanes de Monterrey in the AAA Mexican League, Cory played a whopping
2068 games of pro baseball.
Just 13 of these were in the MLB.
He got his first cup of coffee going 0-for-5 with a run scored and 4 strikeouts while appearing in 8 games for the 2001 Atlanta Braves.
Then, after the better part of nine years kicking around the minors, he got his second chance for the 2010 LA Angels. Things weren't going much better this time around for poor old Cory. Entering the Angels' July 10 game at Oakland, he was still looking for his first big-league hit.
That game turned out to be a 15-1 laugher in favour of the home side. Nevertheless, one thinks it might just have been the greatest day in Cory's life.
With the score already an embarrassing 13-0 in the top 8th, LA skipper Mike Scioscia sent Cory in to PH against Ross Wolf. Down to his last strike with a 1-2 count on him, Cory laced a long flyball to deep LF, earning him not just his first MLB hit - a triple - but RBI as well.
The next day's game, another loss to the A's in which Cory went 0-for-3 with 2 Ks, would be his final one in the bigs.
Archie Graham would be so jealous. But also, you'd have to think, just a little bit proud as well.
The EL version of Cory has so far had a similarly interesting career since entering the league as a Free Agent in 1975. He signed a minor league contract with the ABCs and spent the early part of that season at the Clowns, impressing enough to be named to the Futures game in midseason. All the same, he was traded not long after that to the AGs for a certain pitcher by the name of Mariano Rivera.
Like a bent penny, Cory was traded back to Indy the next year and then, with Bernardo Baro, was traded again a few months later to the Red Sox, his current organisation.
After performing solidly without exactly setting the world alight over his first two seasons in the AAA Transit League, Cory has been nothing short of a revelation so far in 1977 for another set of ABCs - the Atlanta Black Crackers. With 63 of the 144-game TL schedule having been completed, Cory has already amassed 4.1 bWAR and is on target for 58 home runs, which would smash the current TL record of 51.
He is yet to see one pitch in the bigs.
We'll keep a close eye on his progress and see how things play out.