When throbbing pain developed in his shoulder, CPT Chris Rowley ’13, the only graduate of the U.S. Military Academy to play in Major League Baseball, reacted as he always does when challenged. He did not blink.
Rowley was 30 and trying to get back to the majors when he realized his improbable journey had run its course.
Disappointment over being bypassed in all 40 rounds of the amateur baseball draft after a sterling career at West Point hadn’t stopped him. Nor had a two-year hiatus from baseball while he served as a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army. In his second season after that hiatus he attended an M.L.B. game for the first time in his life and was the starting — and winning — pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays.
