Sam Fuld headlines surprising early stars - When the Tampa Bay Rays sent top starting pitcher Matt Garza to the Cubs for a few hot prospects in a seven-player trade this winter, folks barely noticed that a couple of intellectual outfielders were also exchanged in that same deal. Fernando Perez, an Ivy League product of Columbia, went to the Cubs, and Sam Fuld, the Stanford product known mostly for his lack of height and daredevil plays in the outfield, went to the Rays.
The Perez-for-Fuld part of the equation was largely overlooked, which was nothing new to Fuld, a speedy 5-foot-9-ish player who'd been up and down with Lou Piniella's Cubs, where he never had more than 97 at-bats in a season. Fuld, now 29, has had to overcome a lot, from smallish obstacles like growing up in a decidedly non-baseball hotbed such as Durham, N.H. (where his dad is a dean at the University of New Hampshire and his mom a New Hampshire state senator) and being a 24th-round Cubs draft choice, to larger ones like overcoming Type 1 diabetes. So he never was one to complain about something like playing time, not when he understands how everyone at this level is talented and everyone deserves a chance. If anyone gets the odds, he does; he showed a unique aptitude for numbers as the small child of a professor.
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