Chris Coletta, Date of Birth, Place of Birth
TweetChris Coletta
American baseball player
Date of Birth: 02-Aug-1944
Place of Birth: Brooklyn, New York, United States
Profession: baseball player
Nationality: United States
Zodiac Sign: Leo 
About Chris Coletta
- Christopher Michael Coletta (born August 2, 1944, in Brooklyn, New York) is a retired professional baseball player (corner outfielder) 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 (among others) 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 (1963–72)--- from age 18 to age 28.
- In 1963, he hit .312 for Waterloo (Class A).
- In 1964, he hit .326 for Winston-Salem (Class A).
- 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 (Class AA) 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 (with on-base percentages around .400, and slugging percentages around .450). In mid-August 1972, about a week after turning 28 years old, Coletta was finally liberated from the (at the time) dysfunctional Red Sox organization --- he was traded to the Angels for Andy Kosco --- so that the Red Sox could employ a journeyman (Kosco) in their (failed) attempt to win the AL East that year. In his month-and-a-half stint with the Angels, Colleta hit .300.
- His OPS+ (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage normalized to the league average) was 130, meaning his performance was 30% better than the league average.
- Because 1972 was such a poor season for batting in general – the DH was instituted in the AL the next year because scoring was down so much – translating Coletta's batting average to an "average" season (average ballpark, average runs scored, etc.), 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 (top of the fourth). 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 (in what turned out to be his second-to-last Major League at bat).
- 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 (600 plate appearances), 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 (which was old for a player at that time), 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 (1973–76), Coletta hit .284, .306, .271, and .273.
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