Well, the draft is done. To no one’s surprise, Arizona picked high school shortstop Justin Upton. As a matter of fact, 35% of the draftees came from the high school level.
Number Two was Alex Gordon, a Cornhusker third baseman.
There were some familiar names in the draft. This is from mlb.com’s web site:
The Cardinals chose Jesse Schoendienst, the great nephew of their Hall of Fame infielder and former manager Red Schoendienst, in the 40th round, while the Twins grabbed Toby Gardenhire, son of skipper Ron Gardenhire, in the 41st round. Seattle grabbed Andrew Hargrove, son of manager Mike Hargrove, in the 47th round while the White Sox grabbed John Wolff, the grandson of Hall of Fame broadcaster Bob Wolff, in the 47th round.
Toby Gardenhire?? Wait a minute… I know that name!! He’s the slick fielding shortstop from our own University of Illinois! Way to go, Toby!
As it was, five Illini were chosen in this week’s draft. Not surprisingly, Chris Robinson was chosen pretty high. Robbie was chosen in the 3rd round (90th overall) by the Detroit Tigers.
From fightingillini.collegesports.com, here is the list of Illini that were picked in the MLB draft.
Illini Picked in the 2005 MLB Draft
Chris Robinson – 3rd round – Detroit
Jimmy Conroy – 19th round – New York AL
Drew Davidson – 22nd round – San Diego
James Morris – 23rd round – Cincinnati
Toby Gardenhire – 41st round – Minnesota
Congrats to them all!
ESPN/Baseball America has a scouting report of the top draft picks. Check it out.
Any info on why Dusty Bensko wasn’t drafted? and did he want to be?
I’m not exactly sure. A lot of what I read predicted him to be picked. He’s certainly good enough.
With his talent and being a senior and all, I’m a bit surprised. There’s no info on the Illini site which doesn’t surprise me too much.
Maybe the News-Gazette will come out with something tonight.
Nothing in the paper today. I shot off a note to the sports editor to see if he knows anything we don’t.