A Group School Training Is Good Worth, and You May Meet an MVP

Watching the waning days of Albert Pujols’ profession, one will get to remembering. The person forged such an enormous shadow over the game for therefore lengthy, his early days appear to be a special period. For a way of how lengthy, I keep in mind listening to about him for the primary time from a bodily copy of USA As we speak’s Sports activities Weekly — the factor we used to learn whereas strolling to highschool uphill each methods, and so forth. The Cardinals, it was reported, have been so impressed with a 21-year-old third baseman who’d barely performed above low-A that they have been contemplating plugging him into their Opening Day lineup.

Pujols’ speedy rise to prominence is uncommon however not utterly remarkable, and the rise of a precocious younger hitter from the Dominican Republic conjures up sure photographs: signing as a young person, working up by the low minors, proving himself in opposition to grown males at an age when his American counterparts are nonetheless consuming meal plan tater tots and going to frat events.

However Pujols, who moved to New York after which to Independence, Missouri, as a young person, was a school baseball participant. He performed one season at Maple Woods Group School (now Metropolitan Group School-Maple Woods). There, he did about what you’d anticipate probably the greatest hitters ever to do in opposition to juco competitors: hit .466 with 22 dwelling runs in 56 video games, led his staff to a regional title, and earned All-American honors. That spring, the Cardinals picked him within the thirteenth spherical of the draft, and two years after that he was within the majors. Two World Collection, three MVP awards, and virtually 700 dwelling runs later, the remainder of the story.

As a self-described faculty baseball aficionado (others would possibly use adjectives like “sicko” and “know-it-all”), I’m tickled by the concept if one have been to measure the success of a faculty baseball program by one thing like cumulative WAR or award {hardware}, Pujols alone places Maple Woods on par with most Energy 5 packages. It’s even funnier that because of Bryce Harper, late of the School of Southern Nevada, there are a number of junior schools with energetic multiple-MVP winners, however no Division I colleges.

There are two factors right here, one severe and one not.

The intense level is that whereas sure packages have a popularity for creating expertise, and sure areas have a popularity for producing it, actually distinctive baseball gamers come from in every single place and take dozens of various paths to the majors. They’re the sons of athletes, lecturers, farmers, stevedores, librarians, no matter. They’re discovered enjoying in entrance of 10,000 screaming followers within the SEC or enjoying in entrance of no person specifically at excessive colleges in upstate New York.

The actually outstanding factor is that, for greater than 70 years now, organized baseball has had a scouting community able to find virtually all of them. Just a few extra would possibly slip by the cracks now that the draft is half the dimensions it was 5 years in the past, however usually talking, even a child from some random neighborhood faculty can get a shot within the execs if he’s ok.

The non-serious level is that illustrating this level affords a handy pathway to a phenomenon diehard baseball followers are likely to stay: Completely meaningless, arcane trivia.

See, it turns on the market’s completely no correlation between the popularity of a faculty baseball program and its skill to prove MVP-level gamers. Quantity, sure, {that a} college has some management over, however not the height of its best alumni. So, within the curiosity of distracting America’s white collar staff on a Friday afternoon, I’ve constructed a quiz. Since trendy MVP voting guidelines got here into play in 1931, 39 schools have produced no less than one MVP of the American or Nationwide League. What number of of these are you able to title? (Together with the 2 I’ve already given away earlier on this submit.)

Seems baseball historical past is plagued by juco legends, with out even counting two all-time greats on this quiz who famously transferred from junior schools to main convention colleges. Additional complicating issues: Various MVPs are listed on Baseball-Reference as having attended a school however by no means performed baseball there. Ernie Banks, as an example, took evening lessons on the College of Chicago, the place he presumably discovered many desirable issues about economics. I sorted these circumstances out as greatest I might utilizing SABR’s participant biographies (if anybody has proof a technique or one other of whether or not Carl Yastrzemski performed on Notre Dame’s freshman staff, or if Don Baylor performed at Blinn School, I’ll replace the quiz). Gamers are listed solely on the college they have been drafted and/or signed from.

Admittedly, solely a [chooses euphemism carefully] explicit form of particular person would hunt down this data, and even discover it attention-grabbing when confronted with it. However this type of abstruse trivia is baked into baseball fandom, so have enjoyable.