Java Jive

The expression “a cup of coffee” is defined in The Dickson Baseball Dictionary (Third Edition) as “A brief trial in the major leagues by a minor league player…. The phrase seems to have derived from the observation that a young player’s first taste of the major leagues is usually quite short, figuratively just long enough to drink a cup of coffee.”

I haven’t seen anything that goes farther to say how many games it takes to qualify for membership inn that club. Of the more than 22,000 men who have played in the big leagues, 1,522 batters and 716 pitchers have appeared in just one game (there is some overlap involved). A handful of them tell their stories in The Cup of Coffee Club: 11 Players and Their Brush with Baseball History, by Jacob Kornhauser. Similar books look at short-lived careers, including One Win Wonders and One-Hit Wonders: Baseball Stories, both by George Rose.

You could put a book together for each team; The Least Among Them: 29 Players, Their Brief Moments in the Big Leagues, and a Unique History of the New York Yankees, by Paul Russell Semendinger is one such example. Again, it depends on what you consider the largest number of games you can have under your belt and still qualify.

Another calculation could be time spent on a roster. I wonder what is the longest tenure for a player with fewest games. The way teams shuffle players up and down from the minors, especially over the last two Covid-influenced seasons, is head-spinning.

I bring all this up now because of a Feb. 7 piece in The Nation by Kelly Candaele and Peter Dreier titled, “Baseball Players Can’t Live on ‘a Cup of Coffee’.” I have this thing for baseball stories which appear in unconventional publications. Have to fill your baseball Jones somewhere since the lockout is still on.