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I loved that, I actually had tears in my eyes.

Best of luck to your former teammate, a long road awaits, if he works hard, he might just get that shot!

TPM- Thanks for checking it out. He and I played summer ball together last year. I was pretty surprised that he didn't get picked up in the draft to be honest, being a senior 6'2" RHP that is 88-92 with a pretty good slider. He pitched great for us last summer and is the 8th person from that squad to sign a professional contract (second with the Jays, as he mentioned, our catcher was a free agent sign with them as well). If anyone knows him or comes across him, he is one of the most personable and funny people I have ever met in my life and is a great teammate to have. I haven't experienced baseball life in a professional setting but I must say that in my mind, he's a great "clubhouse personality".

JH,
Sometimes seniors aren't drafted, they can sign FA so the team doesn't draft them.
FWIW, quite a few years ago, seniors went FA before the draft, this gave them 30 teams they could deal with. This usually was for more talented seniors who decided to stay 4 years or redshirted.
So sometimes when people say so and so wasn't even drafted and signed as a free agent, chances are it could have been before the draft.
You know I didn't even know that the BJ's had a team in Vancouver (duh). Besides the whole emotional roller coaster of the draft he was off to play in another country.
Just thinking about how overwhelming the whole thing is, brings back memories.

With Ben it is an interesting story as well. His college team was pretty weak and his numbers weren't all that good. His ERA and other stats from school absolutely do not correlate with his talent. I can assure you that he doesn't care at all whether he was drafted or not. He wears the same jersey as if he was.

The other country thing won't be too much of a problem for him I don't think. He's quite social...better opportunity to come home with ridiculously funny stories, which he's pretty good at.

Well Ben may not have your gift for writing J H but he's got the passion part down. You can feel how excited he is to be a pro ball player with his writing. I'm going to keep checking back in with his blog to see how he's doing. I hope he does well.

The draft is a funny thing. There are guys drafted late but get early round money. Guys drafted early who sign for late round money. A team will call in a round and ask if they will take a low ball number and when they say no just skip on to the next guy. In my very limited outsider experience with the draft it just seems that they aren't really drafting for talent overall but for guys they can sign reasonably. Obviously you have the big money teams who can pay higher salaries but overall just finding guys they can afford. I guess this how the MLB draft is different compared to the other drafts.

Sorry for going on a tangent there. Ben's story about not getting drafted but signing a free agent contract very soon after the draft and him getting a spot on the short A club got me thinking.