Lou Collier lost in translation

Beerleaguer’s search for former Phillie Lou Collier continues with modest progress. His whereabouts have been narrowed to the largest continent in the world.

My search for Lou started this spring when I noticed the career journeyman was missing from the Phils’ list of spring invitees. In fact, he was not invited to any camp this spring.

I e-mailed Inquirer beat writer Todd Zolecki with my concern, but he didn’t know where he was. Randy Miller of Phillyburbs.com didn’t know, either. I sensed a strange attitude from both reporters. Neither of them cared.

I care.

Last week, I enlisted the help of my stepfather, Martin, an avid box score browser of the foreign and independent leagues. He contacted his source close to the Phillies, an old high school buddy named Emmitt Miller. Every fan has a team insider that can score tickets and relay gossip, and they always have names like Emmitt Miller.

Miller placed a call to the Phillies, offering up a tip that the Phils granted Collier free agency in December and is now playing in Asia, either in Taiwan or Korea, but not Japan. Like everyone else on the planet, the Phils had also lost track of Lou, a pretty good hitter that’s still just 31-years-old.

It's pretty amazing how a guy that's made a million bucks in baseball can just vanish into the far reaches of the globe.

It’s also amazing for a guy that’s probably better than Matt Kata. Last year in Scranton, Collier hit .326 with 14 homers and a .517 slugging percentage. In their 2005 annual, Baseball Prospectus called him "a defacto 27th or 28th man," and questioned, based on his late-career offensive surge, why he "hasn’t been a 23rd or 24th man instead."

Since every Korean or Taiwanese baseball site is published in native script, I can’t find him, but I’m getting close.

Anyone that can pinpoint Lou’s whereabouts will get a one-year paid subscription to Beerleaguer.com.

Comments

[George S]

Lou Collier batted .361 in the Korea Baseball Organization this spring training for the Lucky Goldstar Twins (LG Twins). Hwr, I checked their roster today and he is not on it.
If I find anything further I'll surely let you know.

[That Dude from Philly]

Lou was involved with an unfortunate incident with the daughter of a local asiatic warlord.

[Tom Goodman]

Jason, I took your challenge but gave up after looking through about nine pages on Google (including following more than a few links to their ends). One thing is certain, Collier played for a whole lotta' minor league teams in his day and had more than a few cups of coffee in the Bigs along the way.

Leave it to George to find out something, but I have to lodge a small protest here. George lives in SE Asia and no doubt has access to resources (language being one of them???) we lack. So, George, you get credit for your excellent research per usual but you may have had something of an advantage. If you track down his current whereabouts not only will you receive the one year subscription to Beerleaguer, I will throw in a one year subscription to Swing and a Miss.

As for your offer, Jason, I guess I will just have to sneak onto Beerleaguer as an unpaid guest pending further research. As long as you aren't checking your Site meter or Stats too often I should be able to get away with it.

[Andre' Morgan]

I am Lou's high school baseball coach at Chicago Vocational(Dick Butkus, Juwan Howard, Kenna Turner, Chris Zorich) and if you really are trying to find him please email me.

[J.J.]

Lou is currently playing for the Hanwha Eagles of the Korean league. Here is a link to his player page in Korean.

http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://www.hanwhaeagles.co.kr/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhanwha%2Beagles%2B%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff

[Harold Tre Brown]

I played my little league ball with lou he has always been a hellava player we also went to kishwaukee college together if you can pass him my e-mail address