The last time most of the baseball-watching public saw Kolten Wong, he was getting picked off at first base by Koji Uehara as the St Louis Cardinals lost Game 4 of last year’s World Series to the Boston Red Sox.
To them, it was a rookie mistake by a second baseman they likely had not heard of before. For Wong, it was the latest in a series of twists in a tumultuous few months.
Wong was called up by St Louis last August after a successful three years in the minor leagues, success that won him the organisation’s 2013 Minor League Player of the Year award. Two months after his World Series appearance, his mother, Keala, died following a long fight with cancer.
He made the opening-day roster for the Cardinals this season, only to be demoted to Triple-A after just 20 games. Wong took the move in his stride and hit .344 in 15 games to earn a recall three weeks later.
The move looked to have worked wonders as Wong was named National League Rookie of the Month in May. His swings in fortune did not end there, though, as he injured his left shoulder diving for a ball on June 5 and afterwards struggled at the plate, eventually going on the disabled list on Saturday.
I covered Wong when he was in high school at Kamehameha-Hawaii, and I feel confident saying he will return from this setback better than ever. His dedication to baseball is second only to his family and he has an excellent guide in his father, Kaha, a former minor-leaguer. The Cardinals and their fans need not fret over these growing pains – they have a gem of a player, and a person, in Wong.
pfreelend@thenational.ae
Follow us on Twitter at SprtNationalUAE
