Have you ever looked up the odds of a person playing baseball at the professional level? Let alone the odds of making it to Major League Baseball? WHEW, those numbers are insane. I read that a high school baseball player has about .5% chance of playing pro baseball – and that does not mean making it to the bigs. Of course the percentage of college ballplayers who go on to play pro is much higher (around 10%), but only because the pool of college players is a lot smaller than the pool of high school players. With each level advanced in the minor leagues these men are defying incredible odds, although, some do have better odds than others. I found an interesting article by Mike Rosenbaum from 2012 that looks at percentages of players who make it to MLB based on what round they were drafted in. First round draft picks reach the big leagues at a whopping 66%, and as you might have guessed the percentage drops rapidly from there. Addison was drafted in the 17th round, where only about 11% make it to the show. Any normal person would look at these numbers and feel defeated just seeing how unlikely it is to fulfill their lifelong dream, but if there is one thing I have learned in this whole baseball process it’s that these athletes are some of the most resilient and determined people on the planet.
Thinking about all these numbers doesn’t scare me one bit, they actually give me hope. Addison has already overcome tremendous odds to get to where he is at this very moment. I can’t even express the amount of pride I have for him every single day he goes out on that field and literally battles to make that childhood dream of his a reality. Only God knows where we are going to land in our baseball journey. Maybe it’s MLB, maybe it’s not. Truthfully it doesn’t even matter, because we will always know that he gave it his all.
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