There is no road map for making it to the big leagues, no magic formula. Nobody knows that better than Scott Richmond of North Vancouver, B.C.
So, now that he's here after a 10-year jaunt down many paths, some of them with dead ends, the 29-year-old rookie-of-the-month in the American League has expanded his horizons. Why waste all that effort if you're not going to hang around longer than a cup of coffee?
"I want it to be 10 years," Richmond said yesterday, looking ahead to his career. "Why can't I dream big? I know my path is different and it's not the conventional way of making it, but I feel that has made me stronger as a person.
"I've heard a lot of negative things, whether it's through the media or through people I know who didn't want me to succeed or didn't think I had the ability. It just motivates me to do well and do better and prove people wrong."
After high school, Richmond played on community teams in the summer and worked on Vancouver's waterfront. After three years of trying to get noticed by a U.S. college or a pro scout, he decided to quit his job and find a way to worm his way into pro ball.
"I needed to get into a wood bat league," he said. "I had been playing in a metal bat league and I knew wood bat was what I needed to do. So I quit my job and moved to Moose Jaw. I was trying to get my link into America and I knew if I went there to play wood bat ball, it would get me to the States.
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