Matt Adams and the Future of Philipsburg

When I was a kid, well not so much a young kid, but in my teens, there was a guy from my hometown who was in the minor leagues.  His name was Robert Paulson...just kidding, it was Brian Pelka.  Since his minor league time was before the internet, we rarely got any information on how he was doing.  The local paper would sometimes run a small blurb updating his stats for the year.  After a few years, he was seemingly forgotten.  For some reason, I always thought he made it to the AAA club for the Pirates, but after looking at his Baseball-Reference page, I found out that he never made it past A ball.  Odd.

Another kid got drafted from my high school, who was only a two years older than me.  I was able to follow his career a little more, the local papers followed him more closely (he was drafted in the 10th round by the Detroit Tigers).  Justin Hazelton never really did anything though (I do not mean that in bad way, I always wanted him to do well, he played on my little league team), and eventually tried to switch to a pitcher.  Interesting, Eric Milton (he was from Bellefonte) was drafted in the first round of that draft.

Over the years I have followed the various kids who have been drafted from my high-school and none of them have ever made it past the A level.  I have no clue if anyone from my school ever made it higher than that.

The last kid I saw drafted was Matt Adams.  I have no clue who he is, but apparently he was good at baseball and went to Slippery Rock.  The Cardinals took him in the 23rd round and I figured there would never be anything about him.

I was wrong, the bar in Philipsburg would post his stats in the bathroom (do not act so surprised, many bars hang the newspaper up in the bathroom) and I noticed that the kid could hit.  Since being drafted he has went from the low minors and is now up to AA.  Unfortunately, I kept checking the different minor league prospect rankings and his name never came up when discussing the Cardinals.

This season he is one of the top hitters in the Cardinals organization and a few of the Cardinals minor league blogs actually believe he could make it to the majors (albeit as maybe a DH).  I wish him the best of luck.  It would be cool to see a major league player from my area.  Hell, the closest we have is Joe Beimel and he is from St. Marys (or maybe Milton, but he is no longer in the league).

If you want to read some of the stuff about him from Cardinals writers, check out Future Redbirds, he has his own label, must mean that people are noticing...

Also, here is another article from Rumbunter (apparently the writer is from Philipsburg as well).  The picture is from that site.