SUMMERS IN QUAKER HISTORY 1996: Ex-Penn star makes Major League debut

This article originally appeared on June 13, 1996. On June 3, 1991, the Chicago Cubs did something unusual. They invested their first-round pick in the amateur baseball draft, the 12th overall, in an Ivy Leaguer. The man of choice was Doug Glanville, then a 20 year-old outfielder at Penn. The road to the majors had been slow, but steady since that day five years ago. Then, last Saturday night, Glanville got the call about which every ballplayer dreams. "I was in Iowa [Cubs AAA team]. We just played a game against Omaha and they called me into the manager's office," Glanville said. "I had an idea it was going to happen, but I didn't pay any attention until I was sure." The next day, the Penn alum found himself at Wrigley Field, starting in left field for the Cubs. In so doing, Glanville became the first former Penn player to reach the majors since Bob Seddon took over as baseball coach a quarter-century ago. "We felt that he should have been up before," Seddon said. "He was doing very well at Iowa." Batting second, Glanville came up in the first inning to face Montreal lefty Kirk Rueter. The rookie scorched a ball, but it was caught in the outfield. For his debut, Glanville took an 0-for-4. He admits to some pre-game jitters. "Yeah, it was tough at first," the Teaneck, N.J., native said. "I felt pretty good at the plate, but the outfield was a little different because not too many times in the minor leagues do you have the fans behind you like that." Fittingly enough, the life-long Phillies fan got his first big-league hit at the park he had visited so often, in the city where he played three years of college ball. Monday night, the Cubs invaded Philadelphia for a three-game set and Glanville was in the line-up. In the top of the first, he fell behind Phillies pitcher Terry Mulholland, no balls and two strikes. "I was thinking, 0-2, stay short. Just get the barrel to the ball," Glanville said. "And it worked out. I got my hands out just quick enough. Because a little bit later, I would have been jammed easily." Glanville wristed a single to right field, an occasion made even more special by the presence of a large contingent of friends and family who drove down from North Jersey, as well as his former coaches Seddon and Bill Wagner. Once the historic hit was past, the rookie got a taste of the famed big-league sense of humor. "They [Cubs teammates] got this ball that they said was the first hit, and they wrote all over it, tore it up. They wrote Philadelphia, they spelled it wrong. I was like, 'Would they do that to the first ball?' But the guy told me later he has the real one." There has been a lot of anticipation of Glanville's arrival in Chicago. As a former first-rounder with a quarter-million dollar signing bonus, the speedy outfielder is expected to produce. Even as a minor leaguer, Glanville could often feel the eyes focused on him. "Definitely, you know, it puts you under a microscope because expectations are high," Glanville, who preceded his call-up to Chicago with a 19-game May hitting streak, said. "I kind of took it negatively for a while. It affected me ." His credentials from Penn were impressive, in more than just baseball terms. Sure, he hit .414 during his junior campaign and displayed some power in cavernous Bower Field, but that's all standard fare for a first-round draft pick. How many other members of the draft class of 1991 kept a 3.3 GPA in systems engineering? In fact, that commitment to academics ruffled some feathers during Glanville's college days. In 1991, Glanville was criticized for deciding not to play in a Penn-Temple game in order to study for a final exam. While some teams were scared away from the young outfielder by a seeming lack of priority for the sport, the Cubs were comfortable with Glanville's academic pursuits. They allowed him to return to Penn in the fall of 1991 to finish his degree. But now Glanville's focus is exclusively baseball. At last, he has gotten the chance to show the big club what he can do and, possibly, make the game a career. "Hopefully, it'll get to that point where you can lock in and make a lifestyle out of it," he said.

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