Stephen Strasburg won just one game as a junior at West Hills High outside San Diego, went undrafted after his senior year and failed to impress San Diego State manager Tony Gwynn.
"To me, he didn't have a lot of confidence," Gwynn recalls.
Strasburg was 250 pounds, had never lifted a weight in his life, and after practice every day went to Estrada's Taco Shop and scarfed down a California burrito, packed with carne asada, and french fries. He could throw 90, but he was so out of shape that his knees would occasionally buckle during games, forcing coaches to help him off the field.
"He would just collapse," says his high school coach, Scott Hopgood. "It was scary. His knees couldn't support his weight." When scouts asked Hopgood to name his best pitcher, he pointed them to a polished lefty named Aaron Richardson.
"I know everybody now is asking, 'How did you miss on Stephen Strasburg in high school?' " says a major league scout. "But we didn't miss. He was soft in every way." Strasburg would bark at infielders after errors and at umpires after bad calls. If he gave up a couple of hits and the opposing dugout started to chirp, he had a tendency to overthrow his fastball, which would then flatten out and get smacked even harder.
"I told scouts not to draft me," Strasburg says. "I wasn't ready."
Strasburg nearly dropped out of school during his second week of conditioning as a freshman.
"I was this close," he says, holding his thumb next to his index finger. "I was going to find a job. We have a Home Depot and a Lowe's near our house."
Click here to view RealGM's prospect page for Stephen Strasburg.
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