Photo by William Howard. Jason Szuminski
Who: Jason Szuminski, a 2000 MIT grad with a shot at getting to baseball's Big Show
Field of Dreams: The 25-year-old, whose degree is in aerospace engineering, hopes to go where no MIT alumnus has gone before: Major League Baseball. A four-year letterman for the Engineers, he was drafted by the Chicago Cubs after college and spent four years in the minors. The San Diego Padres acquired him in December for a crucial spring training tryout.
Called Up: Szuminski is already a team player. He was in the ROTC as an undergrad and is an active-duty first lieutenant in the Air Force. At MIT, he worked on a project cosponsored by the Air Force to develop three basketball-sized satellites that would orbit in close formation, "like something you'd see on The Jetsons," he says.
Scouting Report: Szuminski didn't seriously consider a pro baseball career until his junior year, when a Cincinnati Reds scout attending an Engineers game to see another player noticed his heat. Now the righty is busy gaining a new appreciation for the finesse of pitching. "I've learned that a 94-mile-an-hour pitch straight down the middle gets hit really hard," he says. That's something they don't teach at MIT.
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