Bartolo Colón

About

Bartolo Colón (born May 24, 1973) is a Dominican-American professional baseball pitcher currently playing for the Atlanta Braves as of May 2017. He has amassed a cult following among MLB fans during his tenure with the New York Mets from 2014-16, in large part to his unexpected success for a pitcher his age and his comically nonathletic plate appearances.

History

Colón made his Major League debut in 1997 with the Cleveland Indians. He spent most of his career in the American League where pitchers do not go to bat, and where he was an All-Star 3 separate times and won the 2005 Cy Young Award. ^[1] He has always been known as a great pitcher and funny teammate with a decent fan following. Colón has worn the number 40 and the number 21 throughout most of his career.^[1]

After 17 years playing for seven different teams in the American League, Colón signed to a contract with the New York Mets in the National League prior to the 2014 season. Due to the designated hitter rule in the AL, where pitchers do not have to bat for themselves, Colón had very rarely made any plate appearances throughout his career (a total of 12 hits over 16 seasons). The lack of a designated hitter in the National League meant Colón would have to start regularly batting for himself. In August of 2014, Colón won his 200th game, a high milestone, against the Philadelphia Phillies; he is only the third pitcher wearing a Mets uniform to do so.^[5]

Reputation

Colón's awkward batting stance and wild swing, which more often than not knocks off his helmet and spins him around, has led many sports media outlets^[2] to single out his plate appearances. On June 18, 2014, Colón got his first hit since 2005, a standing double.

Since that day, fans have obsessively tracked his at-bats to see if he could impress the fans by getting a hit. Mets' hitting coach Kevin Long set a three-hit personal goal for Colón to achieve throughout the 2015 season, which he had completed and passed by the second month of the season. Broadcasters now regularly refer to him as a "hitting cult hero" for the attention his swings have garnered.

Online Presence

Colón does not maintain much of an online presence outside an unverified Facebook page.^[6] His late-career resurgence has been much discussed in the media, with devoted profiles in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.^[7][8][9]

Bartolo Colón Hit Tracker

At the beginning of the 2015 season, MLB's Cut4 staff set up a page^[3] to track Colón's progress toward his three-hit goal. Staff graded each plate appearance by result and how Bartolo-esque the swing was. A multi-team fandom formed and began following and cheering on Colón's quest, with even his Mets teammates getting in on the fun.

All expectations having been smashed, the Cut4 staff has since begun the Bartolo Colón Hit Tracker Part II^[4] to document Colón's hits as he progressed towards and possibly beyond his career high of 7 hits. On August 31, Colón singled to center field in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies for his 7th hit of the 2015 season, setting a new career high and finally reaching the goal set before him by the Cut4 Hit Tracker.^[9]

Regarding his new career record, Colón said the following in a interview with MLB.com after the victory:

"I really am happy for that moment. To accomplish that, my own personal record, now I'm going to keep working hard to see if I can break my own record and establish a new record: eight hits."

Bartolo Colón did get one more and finished the 2015 season with a total of 8 hits,^[1] and his useful hitting and fielding (and obviously his pitching too) helped the New York Mets win the NL East division and advance to the postseason.

Instead of starting, Colón was mostly used out of the bullpen throughout the postseason. The Mets defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL Division Series and the Chicago Cubs in the NL Championship Series, with Colón getting the win in the clinching game of the NLCS.^[11] The win helped the Mets secure the franchise's first World Series appearance since 2000, and Colón's first trip to the World Series in his entire career. The Mets would lose the series to the Kansas City Royals, but Bartolo would return to the Mets for the 2016 season to try again.^[10]

Bartolo was not re-signed by the Mets after 2016 and left in free agency to play for the division rival Atlanta Braves. In his first game back in New York, playing against his old team, he received a standing ovation from the Citi Field crowd before shutting down the Mets hitters. Only allowing 1 run over 6 innings, the Braves defeated the Mets 3-1 in Colon's return.

The Day Hell Froze Over

On May 7, 2016, in the second game of a series in San Diego, Bartolo Colón got his first hit of the 2016 season… a home run off of the Padres ace James Shields. Colón trotted slowly around the bases, causing earthquakes to rumble across the state of California, and was welcomed to home plate by a standing ovation from the crowd and a chorus of angels singing hallelujah. Because truly, hell had frozen over because Bartolo went deep.^[12]

Win or lose, old or young, skinny or fat, the world is a better place when Bartolo Colón is out there having fun and helping people enjoy themselves at a ballgame. Thank you, Bartolo Colón.

Related Memes

Bartolo Colón at Bat

Bartolo Colón At Bat is a photoshop meme based on an image of the New York Mets pitcher in an awkward batting stance screen-captured during a season match against the Washington Nationals in April 2014.

Search Interest

External References