Pittsburgh Pirates Had Their Own Moonlight Graham in 2017

There are many professional baseball players who never get a shot to play at the game’s highest level, but what about the guys that have gotten one shot? One of them with the Pittsburgh Pirates was John Bormann.

Any baseball fan has probably seen the Kevin Costner movie Field of Dreams. It’s arguably the best baseball movie out there. One player that was made popular because of the movie was Moonlight Graham, a guy who played one inning in right field for the New York Giants in 1905 before retiring. After his professional baseball career ended, Graham became a doctor. He never even got a plate appearance at the major league level before checking out of his pro career.

While the Pittsburgh Pirates never had a Moonlight Graham per se, a guy who only appeared in one major league game and never even stepped to the plate before calling it quits on his playing career, they did have one player come very close to that. That was catcher John Bormann.

The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted John Bormann out of the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2015. Bormann very clearly wasn’t a top talent in the draft. In 2014, he was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels in the 19th round and fell even further to the 24th round with the Pirates the year after.

After he was drafted, Bormann pretty much served as the second catcher to every level he played at. The most games he played in a single season were 52, that coming in 2016 with Single-A West Virginia. He never pretty much never made it past High-A, only ever having 11 plate appearances in total between Double-A, Triple-A, and the major leagues. But on April 30th, 2017, Bormann got to live out the dream: play a game with a major league club.

In very late April, the team’s primary catcher, Francisco Cervelli would go on to miss some time. The Pittsburgh Pirates were then left with only one catcher on the roster, that being Chris Stewart. The Pirates were playing the Miami Marlins and didn’t have enough time to get then prospect Elias Diaz to Miami in time. They also couldn’t get former prospect, Tony Sanchez, to Florida in time either. That meant the Pirates had to do some quick thinking or risk going the entire game with just Chris Stewart and hoped nothing happened.

During this, Bormann was the Bradenton Marauders’ second catcher. Since it would have taken Bormann less than 2 hours to catch a flight and get to Miami before the start of the game, the Pirates decided why not give this guy who will probably never get a shot a chance to play in a Major League game?

While Bormann didn’t start the game, he got his one plate appearance in. It was a blowout game and the Pirates were losing 10-3. They had held it to 4-3 until the Marlins rallied for 6 runs in the 7th inning. It’s the top of the 9th inning and the Pirates opt to give Bormann his chance by pinch-hitting him for third baseman Josh Harrison.

Facing Jarlin Garcia, Bormann would face five pitches. He eventually went down on strikes, but he went down swinging. Sure, it wasn’t the prettiest swing, but it didn’t matter. Bormann got his one chance at major league playing time. It might not have been the walk-off home run, or World Series Game 7 winning hit that most kids dream of, but even getting a chance to face a major league pitcher in a competitive game is something most can only dream of.

After 2017, John Bormann would continue to be a second catcher in the Pirates’ low minors. After 5 games in 2019 at Bradenton, Bormann decided to hang up the spikes in August of 2019. He would retire with 572 total professional plate appearances with one coming in the Major Leagues.

Now Bormann isn’t the only guy ever to have had one plate appearance and then retire very soon after. But he’s one of the more recent ones that come to mind. Things had to line up perfectly for Bormann to get his shot. If he had been in West Virginia, then he probably never gets that one plate appearance. If Cervelli doesn’t get an injury or even is injured just a few hours earlier, the Pirates might be able to get either Sanchez or Diaz down to Miami in time. While people may not remember John Bormann, I’m sure John Bormann will forever remember that one time he got a chance to swing the lumber in the major leagues.