By Paul Casey Gotham
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — From high school to professional baseball with one stop in between, Chris Bostick (Aquinas Institute) has done more this summer than most will do in a lifetime.
Nearly two months later, the Gates, New York native has decided to accept the A’s offer and begin playing professional baseball.
“This is what I really wanted to do,” Bostick commented. “My parents left the decision up to me, and I feel like I am ready to play in the pros.”
Bostick hit .510 his senior season for the Aquinas Little Irish. This after hitting at a .507 clip his junior year and .490 as a sophomore when AQ when the New York State title.
“From day one I have been telling people this kid is unbelievable,” Little Irish head coach Mark Magliocco said. “He played every position in the field as a freshman. He is so fluid in his movements.”
Bostick spent the past six weeks playing for the Webster Yankees of the New York Collegiate Baseball League. He joined a club that was playing .500 baseball with a record of four wins and four losses. Webster finished their regular season Tuesday night riding a 13-game win streak to win the NYCBL West Division championship.
“It was my pleasure to coach him,” said Webster skipper, Dave Brust. “He is a gentleman, and he competes at a level that everyone hooked their wagons to.”
Bostick hit .413 for the summer with 17 extra-base hits including five home runs and 32 RBI.
Bostick leaves on Thursday to join Oakland’s rookie team in the Arizona League.
St. John’s University offered the infielder a full scholarship to attend school in the fall.
Bostick is the first MLB draft pick from Aquinas Institute since the Montreal Expos took Ken Lelek in the 1974 draft. Bostick joins four other former Webster Yankees currently playing professional baseball. Patrick Urckfitz is a member of the Corpus Christi Hooks of the Houston Astros’ system. Marcus Nidiffer plays with the Cedar Rapids Kernels – an Anaheim Angels affiliate. Both Cory Brownsten and Dan Jurik play in the Atlanta Braves’ system.
This kid is a stud with huge potential. His family backs him and figures to give him the support needed to make a run at obtaining a dream. From the outside looking in, he seems to have a good work ethic and the passion that is required to play at a very high level. Some fielding woes have been the only downfall that I have seen from watching him, but that should come around. He can hit with the best of them, and has proved that in HS as well as his time with the Yankees. Older brother Ben will be a great mentor, and his dad won’t let any success go to his head. Chris is in a great position here, and deserves nothing but the best. I wish him all the luck in the world, and thank him for giving me the pleasure of watching him take the diamond
Still, Kyle, why not take the scholarship to St Johns (actually a pretty decent baseball program) and try to get to the bigs via that route??? I’m sure the kid is talented with lots of potential, but a 44th round draft choice is not getting much of a signing bonus. The scholarship at SJU is probably worth $120-$200k over 4 years, not to mention an education to fall back on. And besides, Div 1 college ball is played at roughly a AA level.
Division 1 college ball is NOT played roughly at the AA level. I personally know three guys who have been drafted out of high profile programs (SEC, ACC and Big East) in the past few years. Two of those guys played in the World Series. Only one of them made AA, and that took him 2 1/2 years to get that far. Very few guys come out of college and make it to AA in their first pro season.
Bostick dropped to the 44th round because scouts were not able to see him play for 15 days this past spring. His HS school team had all of their games postponed because of weather. When they finally started playing again, colleges were in conference tournament play, and scouts migrated to those events. He basically went a whole season without being seen. The A’s may drafted him in the 44th, but have been to AT LEAST two Webster Yankee games to encourage him to sign.
Wally, this story is picking up steam around Rochester. From what I am reading, the A’s are setting aside money for him so he can go to college at a later date. If that is the case, the kid obviously values his education – has just decided that his best chance to play in the majors is now.
But congratulations to Bostick.. I am looking forward to tracking his progress through the A’s farm system.
What kind of league(s) did Bostick play in when not playing HS ball? Is Aquinas a real small school, so in the lower level HS classification for sports? Like an A or AA?
Okay Casey, then somewhere between A and AA ball. Didn’t realize you were such an expert on college ball.
Somewhere between A and AA is Advanced A, and most guys don’t get there (if at all) until some time during their second professional season. I would put D1 College Ball along the lines of Rookie Ball.
I have to agree with Casey here. Even guys like Evan Longoria, Buster Posey and Tim Lincecum (who all played big-time D1 baseball) started their minor league careers in Rookie ball or short season A ball. Granted, they progressed pretty quickly from there, but they’re truly exceptional players.
I’d say D1 is comparable to short season A at best, which isn’t really that much more advanced than Rookie ball.
I think a lot of the time when kids are drafted as juniors or seniors in college, esp position players, there’s still some doubt as to how they’ll hit with wooden bats. And for all players, there’s a question as to how they’ll deal with more games and longer seasons. Given the above, there’s a tendancy to “ease them into it” by starting pro ball at a level or two below their skill level.
I guess you’re right that D1 college ball is certainly not the equivalent of AA pro ball … if that were true, then most D1 players would be drafted and start pro careers … that’s certainly not the case. BUT, the better D1 players a) were probably drafted by MLB teams out of high school anyway and/or b) have a maturity leg up on most kids who go to pro ball right out of HS. And that’s probably why many of them just have short stints in Rookie and A ball.
Lastly, did Bostick only get a college offer from St Johns? Or did he have multiple D1 college offers. If it’s the former, I’d be curious as to why only one.