They all came right here, right through Greensboro, yes they all played in Greensboro back in the day…All came through as professional baseball players in the South Atlantic League…You had Greensboro Grasshoppers, Lakewood BlueClaws, Hagerstown Suns, Delmarva Shorebirds and more…
Let’s see there was the winner of Saturday night’s Phillies-Padres game, and that would be the old left-hander, pitcher Brad Hand, who played here in the Gate City for the Greensboro Grasshoppers…
There was Brad Hand, then there was catcher J.T./Jacob Realmuto, who hit a homerun for the Phillies on Saturday night, and he helped lead the Phillies over the Padres, 10-6, in Game Four, of the NLCS…Realmuto with the Greensboro Grasshoppers South Atlantic Championship team in 2011….
You had Brad Hand, J.T. Realmuto, and you also had Rhys Hoskins, who hit two HR’s, as a big part of the Philadelphia Phillies’ Saturday night success…Hoskins came through Greensboro with the Lakewood BlueClaws, when they visited First National Bank Field, and faced the Greensboro Grasshoppers, in some South Atlantic League classics..
Winning pitcher Brad Hand, homeruns from Realmuto and Hoskins, and then there were the two big doubles off of the bat of Bryce Harper….Harper visited Greensboro, back when he was member of the Washington Nationals Class A ballclub, the Hagerstown Suns…Harper vs. the Hoppers, in his first season of professional baseball…You had four RBI from Hoskins last night, and two RBI by Harper, three runs scored by Realmuto, and the Phillies were bluntly lighting the place up, in their home ballpark, in Philly….
And let’s don’t forget Austin Nola, another former Greensboro Grasshopper, who is the regular catcher for the San Diego Padres…Plus you have Manny Machado, the Padres’ third baseman, who was 2-4, with a homerun of his own, on Saturday night…Machado came through Greensboro and met up with the Greensboro Grasshoppers, as a member of the SAL reps of the Baltimore Orioles, that being the Delmarva Shorebirds…Now we do have more, I just remembered that Jurickson Profar, the San Diego Padres’ left fielder, came through Greensboro twice, as a member of the Texas Rangers’ SAL club, the Hickory Crawdads….How about another, Juan Soto, who had a homerun and 2 RBI, he was a member of the Washington Nationals’ Hagerstown team, and they came through Greensboro too, back in the day…
That is almost a full team of key players in this year’s NLCS, and they all came right through Greensboro, back in the day…Needed a place to play, and let’s just say that the Greensboro Grasshoppers, and their home grounds at the First National Bank Field, were more than happy to host all of these future National League All-Stars…
The game goes on, but we can truthfully say we called out the names, of these men having the big games, back when they were just kids, playing their way up the ladder, in the ranks of professional baseball…