Stanford baseball
This entry was written in response to the Research Blogging Assignment for Stanford's Fall 2008 Cultural Interfaces class. For more about this assignment, click here. You can leave a comment on this post by clicking on the "comment" link below.
My research subject focuses on Stanford baseball players and how they fare during professional baseball and after their baseball days end. My research will focus more on interviews than actual academic resources. The reason for this includes the amount of contacts I have in both Stanford and professional baseball. Secondly, there are not many books written or research done on such a specific subject. I will use articles and statistics for general case facts but a majority of my argument lays in the experiences others and myself. In this blog, I will focus on one interview in particular.
Chris O’Riordan was a former Stanford baseball player who graduated in 2002. He was drafted by the Texas Rangers in the 8th round of the 02’ draft and received a signing bonus of $70,000. After spending 5 years in the minor leagues, an injury to his knee forced him to retire. Many baseball players have few career choices once their baseball careers end. The fact they only have a high school education is a major reason for this lack of choices. As a Stanford graduate, Chris was able to secure a job fairly quickly. After taking a month off to rehab his knee, he sent his resume out and a short time after he had found a job at Grant Thorton, a tax advisory service for large companies. The information he provides is specific to how Stanford baseball players deal with the end of their baseball career and the start of the rest of their lives.
As of now he is applying to Stanford, Cal and USC business schools for the fall of 2009 and we all hope he doesn’t go to Cal… or SC.
Comments
It is good that you are able to draw on your own expertise and primary research for this project, though I'm sure you are also finding some published resources as well.
I would have liked to have heard more from the actual interview with O'Riordan -- which must have yielded a wealth of useful information for your project. I'm sure his first person testimony will enrich your paper -- and you should feel free to use this comment section after your blog post to share some of that material (direct from the horse's mouth, as it were) with your readers :) It sounds like fascinating stuff.
Posted by: Christine Alfano, Stanford Instructor | October 27, 2008 01:20 PM
Colin, will you be looking at baseball players who attempt to go pro but never quite make it? It might be interesting to look at the value of a Stanford degree once someone has maybe spent a few years in the minor leagues. Your example of Chris O'Riordan is interesting, but is it standard for someone to make $70,000? That's enough money to make due for awhile- what about people who don't get that signing bonus?
Posted by: Chris Schaller | October 30, 2008 10:59 AM
Colin, it's great that you have so many primary sources lined up for this. Have you come across any national statistics regarding baseball players' professional paths once retired from the MLB/minor leagues? Also, do you know if recruiters confront this issue when they are trying to convince high school players to ditch college for the league? I wonder if players get more leverage in their contracts by noting how risky such a move is for their careers after baseball.
Posted by: John Lyman | November 4, 2008 02:21 PM