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Paul DeJong Is Breakout MLB Star Thanks in Part to Man Serving 4 Years in Prison

It was the day before the 2015 draft began, the day before some team was going to give the most unlikely pre-med student at Illinois State University the chance to take another step towards his dream.

Plenty of kids have a backup plan in case medical school falls through. For Paul DeJong, medical school was the backup plan. Baseball was always the first choice, and it was baseball that had him driving 2 1/2 hours down I-55 to Busch Stadium on that Sunday in early June.

He couldn't actually work out, because of a broken left thumb, but the St.