Stephen Strasburg biography

Synopsis

Early Life

Professional baseball player. Born July 20, 1988 in San Diego, California. Stephen Strasburg's mother, Kathleen Swett, was a dietician, and his father, Jim Strasburg, was a real estate developer. Strasburg fell in love with baseball at a very young age. Always tall and strong for his age, he cut a menacing figure standing atop the pitching mound in Little League, blowing away his young competition with a precocious fastball. However, despite his undeniable talent and strong arm, Strasburg struggled as a pitcher at West Hills High School outside of San Diego. He ignored conditioning and devoured tacos and French fries at Estrada's Taco Shop every day after practice. His weight ballooned to 250 pounds and his performance on the baseball diamond suffered. His high school baseball coach Scott Hopgood recalls, "He would just collapse. It was scary. His knees couldn't support his weight." Despite his 90 mile-per-hour fastball, Strasburg won only one game as a starter during his junior year.

Playing for San Diego State

No Major League team drafted Strasburg when he graduated from high school in 2006, and few colleges showed interest in the talented but underachieving pitching prospect. However, Tony Gwynn— the former star player for the San Diego Padres and Strasburg's childhood idol— was then the coach of San Diego State University and decided to take a chance on the young pitcher. Nevertheless, Strasburg showed up to college overweight and out of shape. He vomited during the first practice of the season, earning him the ire of San Diego State's condition coach Dave Ohton, who nicknamed him "sloth."

"I demoralized this young man," Ohton remembers. "I didn't even want him around the other players. I had never seen a college athlete who was as far behind as he was. I didn't think it was possible to be that bad." Strasburg was so depressed that he moved back in with his mother and grandmother and seriously considered dropping out of school. "I was going to find a job," he says. "We have a Home Depot and a Lowe's near our house."

Instead of quitting, though, Strasburg recommitted himself to his fitness. When he arrived at San Diego State as a freshman, he weighed 255 pounds, had a 21-inch vertical leap, could bench press 115 pounds only one time, and could leg press only 560 pounds. When he left college, he weighed 220 pounds, had a 35-inch vertical leap, could bench press 135 pounds 21 times, and could leg press 1,200 pounds. The velocity of his fastball jumped from 91 to 102 miles per hour.

No longer hindered by poor fitness, Strasburg quickly developed into the best pitcher in college baseball. As a sophomore, he broke the San Diego State record by throwing 133 strikeouts, including one game in which he struck out a staggering 23 batters.