Tommy Pham

He received a $325,000 signing bonus, higher than most players drafted as late as the 16th round.

Thomas James Pham (born March 8, 1988) is an American professional baseball outfielder who is a free agent.

He has played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the St. Louis Cardinals, Tampa Bay Rays, San Diego Padres, Cincinnati Reds, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets, and Arizona Diamondbacks.

He stands 6 ft tall, and weighs 210 lb.

Pham was selected by the Cardinals in the 16th round of the 2006 MLB draft.

Ultimately, after the St. Louis Cardinals selected him in the 16th round of the 2006 amateur draft, Pham opted for professional baseball over college.

Pham began his minor league career in 2006 batting .231/.340/.324 with one home run in 216 plate appearances, with the Rookie League Johnson City Cardinals.

He played shortstop, and made 22 errors in 37 games, for an .849 fielding percentage.

In 2007 he was then shifted to the outfield, and batted .188/.272/.277 with two home runs in 303 plate appearances for the Low–A Batavia Muckdogs and Single–A Swing of the Quad Cities.

He overcame a number of injuries and a vision impairment in 2008 related to keratoconus (which he overcame the following year with contact lenses that give him 20/15 vision in both eyes) to make his major league debut nine seasons after being drafted.

In 2008 he hit .203/.272/.396 with a career-high 156 strikeouts in 438 plate appearances for Single–A Quad Cities and the High–A Palm Beach Cardinals.

In 2009 he batted .232/.313/.378 in 380 plate appearances in High–A.

In 2010 he suffered a small fracture in his wrist.

In a June 2011 game, he tore a wrist ligament.

He played 40 games and batted .294.

In early 2012, he suffered a torn left shoulder labrum, costing him most of the season.

For the 2012 season, he batted .154 in 43 plate appearances for the Double–A Springfield Cardinals.

After promotion to Triple–A Memphis Redbirds of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) in 2013, he tore his other labrum.

He returned to Springfield after rehabilitation.

He batted .264 for Memphis in 30 games, and .301 for Springfield in 45 games.

Pham played most of the 2014 season for Memphis, appearing in 104 games, and batted .324/.395/.491, with 63 runs scored, 16 doubles, six triples, 10 home runs and 44 runs batted in (RBI).

In 2014-15 he played for Leones del Caracas in the Venezuelan Winter League, batting .143 in 63 plate appearances.

Pham was called up to the major leagues with the Cardinals for the first time on September 7, 2014.

In 2014, he struck out in both of his only two plate appearances.

In 2017, Pham became the first Cardinals batter since 1900 to record at least a .300 batting average, 20 home runs, 20 doubles, and 20 stolen bases in the same season.

Pham was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, to Tawana (age 17) and Anhtuan (age 19).

His twin sister Brittany was born two minutes later.

At the time, his father was incarcerated, as he would be for most of their lives.

His father was born in Vietnam to a Vietnamese mother and an African American father, and moved to the United States with his mother, brother, and sister.

Pham's father was gifted in American football, but became entangled in drugs and street crime for decades.

Pham's mother's parents helped her raise her twins on the condition that she work.

She had not finished high school, and took on jobs as a busser, a casino waitress, and at a bakery, and raised the twins in Spring Valley, Nevada.

At the age of two, Pham's pediatrician feared that he had contracted rickets, so he wore leg braces for a year and a half.

Because his mother worked so much, Pham said he could "count on one hand" the number of his games she attended.

When he was five years old, his mother married an electrician named Fred Polk, and they had a daughter, Mercedes.

Pham "has had issues" with his stepfather, and says that once when he was 25 years old, the two got into a fight, and his stepfather stabbed him.

Pham attended Gorman High School, Centennial High School, and then Durango High School in Spring Valley, where he played baseball as a pitcher and infielder.

As a senior, Pham was named the Class 4A All-State Player of the Year by the Reno Gazette-Journal and a second team All-American, after batting .581.

With a fastball in the 90 – range, he drew interest as a pitching prospect, but he did not like to pitch, and rarely did so his senior year.

Pham originally committed to play college baseball at Arizona, and then switched his commitment to Cal State Fullerton, though he attended neither school.