Jorge Posada

School Stories

Here's an article on Jorge Posada before he was drafted by the Yankees.

Introducing Posada to Gongwer might have helped both players more than Frickie imagined.

“Knowing people like Steve helped me so much,” Posada said.

Gongwer helped immerse Posada into campus life. They played table tennis with other players at the Calhoun gym and joined in pick-up basketball games. They lived next door to each other at the Cabanas.

Many of Calhoun’s players went home on weekends, but because Gongwer came from Atlanta, where he couldn’t travel home and back easily, he stayed. So did Posada.

When Gongwer did go home, he often took Posada.

On Friday, when Posada traveled back to Alabama, it was Gongwer who drove him from the ACCC ceremony in Montgomery to Decatur.

During the ride, Gongwer called his mother and told her that he had Posada next to him. Posada took the phone and told her, “I miss your spaghetti.”

They also worked out together, and that’s when Gongwer found out exactly how much talent Posada had.

“I hit .286 my freshman year,” said Gongwer, who now lives in Birmingham, “and I always felt like I was a good player who worked hard. Others might have more talent, but nobody would outwork me.

“But here was this guy with all this God-given talent, and he worked three times as hard as I did.”

The experience of working out with Posada made Gongwer call home to tell his father that he wouldn’t focus too much on baseball and forget about his degree. When his father asked what brought this about, Gongwer said “because I have met a Major League player, and now I know what one looks like.”

Cool story. There's also a little bit on his nickname 'Sado'. No, it's not inreference to the Marquis, but to the mistakee the announcer made on hiss first day as a Yankee [ - Surprisingly, it's a bit like why team mates call Adam Gilchrist 'Church'.]