Scott Bruce Rolen is an American who used to play third base in professional baseball. He was born on April 4, 1975. From 1996 to 2012, he played for the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, Toronto Blue Jays, and Cincinnati Reds in Major League Baseball (MLB).
He was an All-Star seven times and the Rookie of the Year for the National League in 1997. He also helped the Cardinals won the World Series in 2006. Rolen is considered one of the best third basemen defensively of all time, and he won eight Gold Glove Awards during his career.
After he retired in 2018, he was hired as the Director of Player Development for the baseball team at Indiana University. He was chosen for the class of 2023 at the Baseball Hall of Fame. Here’s a look at How Did Scott Rolen Start His Career?
How Did Scott Rolen Start His Career?
After getting scholarship offers from Oklahoma State and the University of Alabama, Rolen decided to play college basketball for the Georgia Bulldogs. When the Philadelphia Phillies of Major League Baseball (MLB) picked Rolen in the second round of the 1993 MLB Draft, it was hard to keep that promise.
Rolen told reporters after the draught that he hoped he could work out a deal to let him play for the Phillies’ farm system in the summer and for Georgia’s basketball team in the winter. On July 22, however, Rolen decided not to go to Georgia.
Instead, he signed with the Phillies and chose to focus on baseball. He was then sent to the Appalachian League to play for the Rookie-level Martinsville Phillies. In his first season as a professional baseball player, he played 25 games and hit.313 with five doubles and 12 RBIs (runs driven in) in 80 at-bats.
Rolen started the 1994 season with the Low A Spartanburg Phillies of the South Atlantic League after going to spring training with the Phillies. Even though his offensive stats were good at Spartanburg, batting. By the last week of August, Rolen had a batting average of.295, 10 home runs, 30 doubles, and 61 RBIs.
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However, his 35 defensive errors in that same period worried sports analysts. Manager Roy Majtyka defended Rolen’s defensive performance, saying, “I’ve seen bad hops that hit him in the head be ruled an error. It’s a joke. I honestly think you could take half of them away.”
Rolen was named the Most Valuable Player for Spartanburg after he hit. He hit.294 with 14 home runs and 72 RBIs, but he told reporters after the season, “I wasn’t happy with anything I did.”
He added, “I need to improve my whole game.” After the minor league season, Rolen joined the Florida Instructional League in 1994 to keep getting better at his sport. As a player in the minor leagues, Rolen was not affected by the MLB strike of 1994–95.
He joined the Class A-Advanced Clearwater Phillies of the Florida State League in April of that year. He missed the first part of the season because he had surgery to fix a broken bone in his glove hand.
He came off the disabled list on June 6, and in his first game back, against the Brevard County Manatees, he hit two home runs. Rolen’s offensive performance improved after he got hurt because it hurt him less to hit a pitch well inside the strike zone than outside of it.
Rolen was moved to the Double-A Reading Phillies of the Eastern League on August 16 after he hit.290 with 10 home runs and 39 RBIs in 238 at-bats for Clearwater. After he was moved up, he played in 20 more games and hit.290 with three home runs and 15 RBIs in 76 at-bats.
Instead of putting Rolen in the big leagues right away, the Phillies kept him in Reading to start the 1996 season. Todd Zeile played third base in Philadelphia.
Rolen was sent to the Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons of the International League on June 13 after leading the Eastern League with a.361 average, 83 hits, 22 doubles, a.568 slugging percentage, and 33 extra-base hits in 61 games for Reading.
He hit nine home runs and had 42 RBIs. The Phillies were having a rough patch when Rolen was called up, and the team started making plans at the end of June to bring him up to Philadelphia after the All-Star Game break. He hit.274 in 45 games for Scranton. In 168 at-bats, he hit two home runs and drove 19 runs.
Insane defensive plays. Countless clutch hits. Scott Rolen’s Hall of Fame career had it all. pic.twitter.com/5VsKlDQn73
— MLB (@MLB) January 24, 2023
How Many Awards Does Scott Rolen Have?
- 1993 Selected to the Indiana Basketball All-Star Team
- 1993 Mr. Baseball (Indiana)
- 1997 NL Rookie of the Year
- 8-time National League 3B Gold Glove Award (1998, 2000–04, 2006, 2010)
- 7-time National League All-Star (2002–2006, 2010, 2011)
- National League Silver Slugger (2002)
The Baseball Writers’ Association of America chose Rolen for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2023, his sixth year of eligibility. In 2018, when he first ran for office, he only got 10.2% of the vote, which was the lowest number ever for a candidate eventually elected by the BBWAA.
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For almost 4 years, Jason Martin has been a freelance writer for newspapers, journals, blogs, books, and online material. He covers the most recent news as well as many other topics.