Christian Yelich and His Journey to Greatness
With the Brewers winning their division, they have safely secure a spot in the 2018 baseball postseason.Their success has been in large part to to their new star player, Christian Yelich. The Brewers traded for young star Yelich in January in hopes for a playoff berth. Ever since the trade, Yelich has been on fire. Yelich hit 33 home runs for the Milwaukee squad and has even hit for the cycle twice during the regular season.
Yelich was born in Thousand Oaks, California, and played many sports growing up. Not only did he excel in baseball, but he was also a solid player for his school’s basketball and football teams. After playing on the varsity baseball team for all four years, Yelich was given a scholarship to the University of Miami. He decided to turn down the offer to play with the Hurricanes and was drafted by the Miami Marlins, where he was given a $1.7 million signing bonus by the Miami baseball club. After coming out of high school as one of the nation’s top prospects, Yelich lit it up for the Greensboro Grasshoppers. The Grasshoppers are the minor league affiliate for the Marlins. After hitting 37 home runs in the minors, Yelich was given the opportunity to play left field for the Marlins. Although he struggled in his first few years as a big league ball player, Yelich found his groove and even made the roster for the 2017 World Baseball classic. The WBC is a international baseball competition inviting several countries to assemble their best players and challenge the rest of the world. Yelich hit .310 for the American’s and led them to a gold medal.
After proving himself as a worthy player for the Marlins, the team decided to trade him to the Milwaukee Brewers for some younger, more promising players. Since the trade, Yelich has hit 36 home runs and drove in 110 baserunners. On Monday, Yelich went 3-3 in the last game of the season and gave us his final push in the race for MVP. With his great performance, the Brewers clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 2011. This is the first time Yelich has been under the big lights in the conversation for Most Valuable Player.
Before being traded, Yelich did not know anyone on the Brewers and was eager to meet his new teammates for the next five years. The team’s president had business in Los Angeles where Yelich has lived his whole life and gave Christian a private plane to take to Milwaukee to meet more players. On the flight was brewer legend Ryan Braun, the last player to win MVP for the Brewers. The flight stopped in Arizona and picked up Robin Yount, another former MVP that played for the Brewers. Yelich felt overwhelmingly appreciated and was extremely excited to start a new part of his career in the Wisconsin City.
The triple crown is always a sought after achievement from every professional baseball player. The triple crown is the highest batting average, the most home runs, and the most RBIs from one player in a single season. This year, Christian Yelich came extremely close to achieving this great milestone, last done in 2012 by Miguel Cabrera. Before Cabrera obtained greatness, the last person to reach the ultimate milestone was Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. This shows that there is no doubt Yelich a fantastic player.
By Adam Smith