Sure, Bautista is a ballplayer. But he's also a college graduate, and, by extension, a multidimensional role model.
Bautista earned his undergraduate degree, after majoring in general studies with a business concentration and a minor in entrepreneurship, from the University of South Florida in May 2014 at the age of 33. From the very beginning -- when he was a junior college player at Chipola College in Marianna, Fla. -- he knew he wanted to complete his college education.
But he was also driven by the wishes of his mother, who wasn't thrilled with her son's desire to pursue a career in baseball.