At Encinal High School, baseball is in the blood
ALAMEDA, Calif. (BVM) — Over the years, Encinal High School, a public high school in Alameda, Calif., has seen a surprising number of baseball players go on to achieve success in their college and/or professional careers.
Pittsburgh Pirates legend and Major League Baseball (MLB) Hall of Famer Willie Stargell was arguably the first star baseball player to come out of Encinal High School. He played at Encinal from 1955-58 alongside teammates Tommy Harper and Curt Motten, both of whom joined him as MLB players. However, of the three of them, Stargell made the largest impact at the highest level of the sport. He played twenty highly–successful years with the Pirates from 1962 to 1982. Over that span, Stargell led the Pirates to two World Series titles in 1971 and 1979, won the National League (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) award and World Series MVP in 1979, and garnered seven All-Star nominations. On the field, he was most known for his ability to clobber home runs, finishing his career with 475 blasts.
When Stargell died in 2001, new stars were emerging from Encinal. Most notably, Jimmy Rollins graduated from Encinal in 1996 with 10 team records. For instance, his 99 stolen bases are the most ever in Encinal’s baseball program’s history. Rollins wound up getting drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies, whom he would go on to play for during the first 14 years of his 16-year career. Throughout that time, he was an amazing defensive shortstop and no slouch with the bat. In fact, he was named NL MVP in 2007 and played a pivotal role in his team’s World Series victory the following year.
After Rollins came Dontrelle Willis who played at Encinal from 1996 to 2000. In his final high school season, Willis dominated, racking up 111 strikeouts in 70 innings pitched. Like Rollins, he bypassed playing at Arizona State University after getting drafted out of high school. Willis was a force to be reckoned with on the mound for the Miami Marlins in the early 2000’s. In 2003, he took home the NL Rookie of the Year award after finishing the season with a 14-6 record. Then in 2005, Willis took his game to another level. He finished the year with an amazing record of 22-10, setting a new Marlins’ franchise record for wins in a season and finishing second in the NL Cy Young Award competition. Unfortunately, after 2005, Willis’ performance decreased. He is now a member of the Oakland Athletics pre- and post-game show team.
While Rollins isn’t playing anymore, his impact on the game of baseball is still felt through his family tree. Rollins’ cousin, Osiris Johnson, also a shortstop, recently starred at Encinal and now is a prospect in the Miami Marlins’ organization after they selected him in the second round of the 2018 MLB Draft. Osiris’ cousin Jeriah Lewis, who hit .371 over his career at Encinal and was named the school’s athlete of the year in 2020, finished his freshman season at the University of Southern California earlier this year.
For a school of just over 1,000 high school students, the baseball program must be doing something right to produce three generations of next-level caliber baseball talent.
