Sweet home Alabama
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- July
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Jorge Posada was wearing a white t-shirt under his uniform for batting practice yesterday from Calhoun Community College in Decatur, Ala. It’s where he went to school, which is probably something not a lot of Yankees fan know.
Jorge is from Puerto Rico and comes from a baseball background. His uncle, Leo Posada, was an outfielder with the Kansas City A’s in the early 1960s. His father, Jorge, also is a baseball man.
When Posada was 17, they wanted him to go to the United States to play ball. A scholarship at a four-year school was in the works but Jorge did not get the SAT score he needed. Several junior colleges in Florida called, but Jorge Sr. did not want his son subjected to the south Florida nightlife.
“Then Calhoun called, it was perfect timing,” Posada said. “It was decided that is where I would go. I had no idea where Alabama was.”
Without having previously seen the campus or having met coach Fred Frickie, Posada showed up in Decatur in 1990, a shortstop and third baseman in complete culture shock. He quickly became the team’s best player and was the team captain in 1991. The Yankees selected him in the 24th round of the 1990 as a draft-and-follow guy and signed him after the 1991 juco season.
Had Posada not signed, he was going to attend the University of Alabama.
“The rest is history,” Posada said.
Posada is already in one Hall of Fame, by the way. He’s a member of the Alabama Community College Athletic Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 2006. Calhoun also retired his No. 6.
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on Wednesday, July 1st, 2009 at 11:26 am by Peter Abraham.
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Chad Jennings
Sam Borden
Josh Thomson
We love ya, Jorge. But now you just have to convince the haters that you call a good game…despite the perfect game and WS games.
Thanks for the back-story. Always wondered how he ended up there.
he shares some interesting stories about the school in his “CenterStage”, as well
if you are going to the game tonight:
BloggingBombers: Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain and Alfredo Aceves will greet fans entering through the Great Hall today at approx. 4 p.m.
Father McShane, president of Fordham is throwing out today’s first pitch. I kind of want to go.
speaking of Alabama, they are going down courtesy of the Hokies September 5th…lock it up
watching the redsox have a meltdown last night lead me to look into if maybe..just maybe..they’ll start getting some bad luck come their way..to just balance how lucky they’ve been schedule wise and who they face…
so i looked at their upcoming schedule and it looks like they will miss zach greinke when they play the royals in A 4 GAME SERIES next weekend…(OK so they face felix hernandez and the yankees didn’t but its a 4 game series against the royals)
un-friggen-believable…
What’s a Hokie?
The Red Sox miss opposing teams’ aces almost all the time. Must be a perk.
“The Red Sox miss opposing teams’ aces almost all the time. Must be a perk.”
Yankees missed Santana, Vazquez and Hernandez over their last three series. It all evens out.
Didn’t the Yanks miss Greinke earlier this year too? The way they have hit some of the better pitchers, and flailed helplessly against some no-names(Nieve, etc); the Yanks sometimes seem to be better off against the vets. Except Halladay, of course. Would be nice to miss him just once.
Also, if they get to the postseason, there won’t be many soft spots, might as well man up and hit the good pitchers now.
Posada has stated his time in Alabama wasn’t pleasant due to some bad cultural experiences.
“What’s a Hokie?”
Think it’s a fictional bird of some sort.
“Posada has stated his time in Alabama wasn’t pleasant due to some bad cultural experiences.”
He could say that about some of his trips to the pitcher’s mound at YS as well.
With the exception of Halliday, if the Yankees bats are alive, they can hit anyone. If the Yankees go into a swoon which they tend to do collectively, they are dead meat against any mediocre pitcher out there.
The Yankees can’t seem to solve Doc, then again most teams can’t either.
Yankees missed Santana, Vazquez and Hernandez over their last three series. It all evens out.
yes but they did face santana when they faced the mets the week before – not sure if vazquez would be considered their ace (i think derek lowe would be their ace and they did face him – and hansen may be ahead of vazquez in terms of being an ace – and they faced him too)
That story reminds me of another guy who didn’t do so well on his SAT’s but became an athletic star in Alabama.
I think his last name was Gump.
a Hokie in reality is nothing…the word Hokie came from our fight song (contains the lines “Hokie Hokie Hokie Hi, Tech Tech VPI”). We were known as the fighting gobblers because Tech started as a military school (fighting) and gobblers actually referred to the way the military students ate their food. somewhere along the way a turkey became our mascot (which makes sense for gobblers as obviously turkeys gobble gobble) and they eventually took Hokie from the fight song…we get this question alot from Virgina Wahoos which is funny since a wahoo is a fish and their mascot is some kind of (g a y) musketeer.
“I think his last name was Gump”
Could also have been Jackson. As in Bo.
Didn’t the Yanks miss Greinke earlier this year too? …
yes they did but that was the second series to begin the season and gil meche at the time was their “ace” (he was the opening day starter) and the yankees did face him…
vazquez leads the league in strikeouts
Flew over Yankees Stadium last night into LGA and could see a replay quite clearly on that massive TV screen from about 4,000 feet. Couldn’t read the score although I tried, craned my neck so much people expected me to Lithgow “there’s something on the wing.”
I grew up in Alabama… can see how Jorge might have had some adjustin’ to do.
Since his only trips there now are probably to see the good doctor at HealthSouth, I doubt it’s one of his favorite places.
Below is a link to an article in the Decatur Daily regarding his induction into the Calhoun HOF. It’s worth reading.
http://legacy.decaturdaily.com.....sada.shtml
Great story, Pete. Never knew any of that…
Ironically, I actually read the same exact thing [about Jorge going to school in AL and why he went there instead of FL] just the other day. I’m pretty sure it was in that Living On The Black book about Moose and Glavine, which I’m just now getting around to reading ::hangs head in shame::
Kinda disappointed me cause if Jorge had opted for Miami, we’d have had the same alma mater (well, where I got my associates degree, Miami-Dade CC) along with Placido Polanco, Raul Ibanez, BUCKY DENT and others. It’s a great baseball school. Glad everything worked out OK for Jorge regardless though.
And his father’s worry was a common one. Often when NBA teams come to Miami to play the Heat in the postseason especially, they stay in Ft Lauderdale cause the coaches do not want them near the SoBe scene. In fact, Avery Johnson famously moved the Mavs to a different hotel mid-Finals back in 06. Too bad it didn’t help
[sarcasm]Flunked his SAT’s? no wonder he can’t call a good game![/sarcasm]
“Hokiehill
July 1st, 2009 at 11:55 am
a Hokie in reality is nothing…the word Hokie came from our fight song…we get this question alot from Virgina Wahoos which is funny since a wahoo is a fish and their mascot is some kind of (g a y) musketeer”
Hokiehill (& anyone else reading this), maybe no one ever told you, but using “gay” as an insult is offensive, not to mention puerile & pathetic. Grow up, or keep your obnoxious prejudices to yourself.
Most interesting post on this blog in a while
I read that he was valedictorian.
“but Jorge Sr. did not want his son subjected to the south Florida nightlife.”
Smart man.
I suspect language issues had something to do with Jorge’s SATs.