In 2004, Jason Szuminski ‘00 made history as the first MIT alumnus to play major-league baseball, appearing in seven games as a relief pitcher for the San Diego Padres. But after Szuminski returned to the Chicago Cubs, the team that had drafted him shortly before graduation, he got sent back to the minors and developed tendinitis and then injured his shoulder. He had surgery in June 2005 to repair a torn labrum.
“It’s frustrating watching all the action of spring training when you can’t be out on the field playing,” says Szuminski, who rehabbed after surgery at the Cubs’ spring training facility in Arizona. Then, on March 22, the Cubs released him.
“This was my last year on my contract with the Cubs, and I had a pretty good feeling they would release me later in the summer,” he says. “They did surprise me by jumping the gun, but it really doesn’t change a whole lot.”
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