Crash Landing: So Long, Wolfie

Twenty years ago this June, the first chapter of the most recent glory era of Phillies baseball began when the Phillies drafted a diminutive high school shortstop named Jimmy Rollins. Over the following six years, the Phillies continued to find extraordinary success in the draft and brought in players who would eventually form a World Championship core including Pat Burrell (’98), Ryan Madson (’98), Brett Myers (’99), Chase Utley (’00), Ryan Howard (’01), and Cole Hamels (’02). There was, however, a draft between the Rollins draft and the Burrell/Madson draft and, although that 1997 Phillies draft would become most (in)famous for the failure of first round pick J.D. Drew to sign with the team, it was hardly a cubic zirconia dud amidst a string of diamonds thanks to their second rounder, a left-handed pitcher out of Pepperdine University named Randy Wolf.

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