A case of perseverance

Jamey Carroll playing for the Expos during a 2003 game in Montreal (Ed Wolfstein photo)

After briefly talking of quitting the game earlier in the 2002 season, when he is stuck in the minor leagues and seemingly going nowhere, longtime Class AA Harrisburg Senators infielder Jamey Carroll makes his major league debut 23 years ago today.

Carroll starts at third base for the Expos, bats second in the order and goes 2-for-3 with a walk in Montreal’s 6-3 loss to the Cubs before a Wednesday afternoon crowd of 20,503 at Wrigley Field.

At 28 years and 7 months, Carroll is the second-oldest position player to make his major league debut with Montreal – trailing only third baseman Coco Laboy, who is 28 years and 9 months when he starts the Expos’ inaugural game in 1969.

The dirt-moving Carroll immediately becomes a favorite of Expos manager Frank Robinson, who keeps finding ways to get playing time for his newest puzzle piece.

After seven seasons of toiling in the minors, Carroll finishes the 2002 season in the majors, batting .310 in 16 games. He either has a hit, walk or moves along a runner with sacrifice bunt in 30 of his 79 plate appearances.

“Coming up (to the majors) changed things for the good for me,” Carroll later says. “Hopefully, it added more years to my career, where before I didn’t know how many years I had left.”

With the exception of a three-game stay at Class AAA in 2009 for an injury rehab assignment, Carroll never spends another day in the minors.

He ends up playing 12 seasons in the majors for six teams before finally retiring after the 2013 season with 1,000 career hits and a .272 lifetime batting average.

“There were times when I was trying to figure out what I was going to do,” Carroll says, “but as long as I had the uniform on, I realized there was a chance.”

Looking for more to read? More than 2,700 archived posts may be found at Blog 3 — Baseball (and other cool stuff) … Enjoy!