From his Hoosier roots, Rolen achieves baseball immortality
Jul. 27—COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — The road to Cooperstown included stops in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Toronto and Cincinnati for third baseman Scott Rolen. All along the way, he exhibited greatness with his glove, consistency at the plate, and a strong clubhouse presence, earning him induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame earlier this month.
But it was a road that nearly led him to Athens, Georgia, instead.
In addition to being Indiana's 1993 Mr. Baseball Award winner, Rolen was also a member of that year's Indiana basketball All-Star team and had a full-ride scholarship to play both sports at Georgia.
And that was not the only hoops option he considered.
"I was gonna go to Georgia to play basketball," Rolen said. "They were gonna allow me — Hugh Durham was there at the time, and Steve Weber was a baseball coach — they were gonna allow me after the season to start playing baseball immediately.
"I don't know if that would have worked in retrospect. But I got drafted by the Phillies, obviously. And then that changed everything."
He was picked by Philadelphia in the second round of the 1993 draft and stormed through the minor leagues, making his Major League debut Aug. 1, 1996, as the new starting third baseman in the City of Brotherly Love.
He was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1997, won Gold Glove Awards with the Phillies in 1998, 2000 and 2001, won eight such awards over the breadth of a 17-year career and earned the final of seven All-Star Game selections in 2011 with the Cincinnati Reds.
He finished fourth in the NL MVP voting in 2004 and batted .421 in leading St. Louis to the 2006 World Series championship.
All of it seemed a long way from growing up in small-town Indiana.
"Baseball was a seasonal sport in my house, which allowed time for barnyard basketball in the woods, Indy 500 bike races around the neighborhood and tennis ball as hard you can throw it from 20 feet away with a 4-by-8 sheet of plywood as a strike zone," he said during his induction speech. "When it got dark, we kicked a tin can around the neighborhood all while being refreshed and rehydrated by the water out of a garden hose."
Referred to by many of his contemporaries as a man who played the game the right way, Rolen credits his southern Indiana upbringing with establishing the core values he exhibited on the playing field.
"Well, I'm from Jasper, Indiana. I'm from Southern Indiana. It's a hard-working community that values hard work and going to work, getting your job done and doing things right and treating people hopefully well and with respect," he said. "... there's no better childhood that I could have come up with."
"I think just watching Scott from across the diamond, he just played the game the right way," fellow inductee Fred McGriff said. "If you hit the ball to third base, you were going to be out because he made all the plays. He just came up with big hits. He was a professional who played the game the way it should be played."
Along with his talents — and perhaps because of his upbringing — came a tremendous humility. During the induction weekend, he repeatedly expressed surprise at being included with baseball's greatest legends.
"At no point in my lifetime did it ever occur to me that I would be standing on this stage. But I'm glad it occurred to you because this is unbelievably special. Thank you," he said Sunday. "I am a Jasper Wildcat, an Indiana boy, a Philadelphia Phillie, a St. Louis Cardinal. I am a Cincinnati Red. Today, because of all of your support, I am a National Baseball Hall of Famer. In my life, I am a friend. I am a brother. I am a son. I am a husband, and I am the greatest gift — a father."
All thanks to a call he made 30 years earlier, a decision to play baseball over basketball, Rolen received another call.
This time, from the Hall of Fame itself.
"I had my whole family at my brother's house, and they were waiting on us there, and we're just a four-wheeler ride away. So I was at my house with my family, my wife and two kids, and we got the phone call there. Phone rings and says National Baseball HOF on it, and that's pretty cool. Trying to screenshot, and I thought I better not do that. So they're like, 'Answer it.' So it was great. We really had a great time."
Contact Rob Hunt at
or 765-640-4886.
