Cris Colon ran into an early rough patch at the plate with high-A Port Charlotte in 1991, The Fort Myers News-Press wrote.
He responded by thinking back to what his late father, Venezuelan baseball man Cris Colon, Sr., had told him, he recalled to The News-Press that June, long after breaking out of that slump.
"I remember what he told me when he was alive," Colon told The News-Press then, "to keep going, never get down. So I concentrated harder."
Colon soon kept going to AA. By the end of the next season, he'd arrived in the bigs with the Rangers. Colon eventually played nearly two decades in that pros. That stint with the Rangers at the end of 1991 - 14 games - proved the extent of his big league time.
Colon's career began in 1986, signed by the Rangers as a free agent out of his native Venezuela.
Colon started with the Rangers in the rookie Gulf Coast League. He saw 46 games there in 1987 and hit .257.
He moved to single-A Gastonia and rookie Butte for 1988, then Gastonia for all of 1989. He hit .226 in 125 games at Gastonia in 1989. He followed a game-tying error in a July 1989 game with a game-winning RBI, The Charlotte Observer wrote.
"(Gastonia manager Orlando Gomez) said to concentrate and forget the error. Trade a base hit for the error," Colon recalled afterward to The Observer.
Colon then played 1990 between Gastonia and AA Tulsa. (He got a Port Charlotte card, but isn't credited as playing for the team.) He hit .273 in 103 games overall.
He then hit .313 in 66 games at Port Charlotte in 1991, and bested that at Tulsa, hitting .392 in 26 games there. His work that year even turned him into a prospect, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote.
Colon spent 1992 at Tulsa. Then, that September, he got his call up to Texas. He saw 14 games, 36 at bats. He picked up six hits and one RBI.
Colon returned to Tulsa for all of 1993, then moved to the Cubs and AAA Iowa for 1994 and 1995. He went on to play in Mexico, Italy, then five seasons of independent ball, including 2004 for independent San Angelo and Coastal Bend. He's last credited as playing in Venezuela in 2006-07 for La Guaira.
- Charlotte Observer, July 4, 1989: Colon Atones To Help Rangers Win
- Fort Myers News-Press, June 21, 1991: A pep talk from Dad
Made the Majors:1,318-33.4%-X
Never Made Majors:2,631-66.6%
5+ Seasons in the Majors:538
10+ Seasons in the Minors:328
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