Hayden Schott might be the best ballplayer you’ve never heard of to come out of the area.
Schott, who has been tearing up Ivy League pitching this season for Columbia University, has traveled one of the most unique paths to collegiate baseball stardom in recent memory.
A 6-foot-2, 215-pound left-handed hitting slugger, Schott has committed to Texas A&M for his final two years of eligibility, because Ivy League schools do not let graduate students compete in NCAA athletics.
Schott turns 23 on May 13, will earn his undergraduate degree in psychology from Columbia this spring and plans to attend graduate school at Texas A&M in the fall, unless he signs a professional baseball contract this summer following the Major League Baseball draft.
“I think in an ideal world, I would like to sign after this year and start playing pro ball and just get going with that,” Schott said. “Also, if it doesn’t work out, and the dominos don’t fall in the right places, I get to go play baseball in the (prestigious Southeastern Conference) and I think that would be really fun. It has always been a dream of mine to play in the SEC. That’s my goal right now.”
At Columbia, Schott is in his second campaign of ripping the cover off baseballs, leading the Lions with nine home runs, a .370 batting average, 22 RBIs and an astonishing 1.217 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage) in the team’s first 24 games.
“I’m seeing the ball better than I ever have, and I’m looser (at the plate) than I ever have,” Schott said.
A recent New York Post article suggested Columbia could make the school’s first-ever College World Series appearance in Omaha.
“We have the tools to do it, but it takes a full unit,” Schott said. “We have the talent, but we’re still not a well-oiled machine yet. But I think we will be. It would be really cool (to reach the CWS). It has been our team goal.”
After graduating from middle school at Carden Hall, a private school in Newport…
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