Almost every child reads Watty Piper's The Little Engine that Could -- a story of a weak little train that defies the odds and climbs a seemingly impassible mountain.
The engine's words of "I think can. I think I can," which he rumbles to himself as he pushes upward, have a special place in kids' hearts, teaching them that nothing is impossible if you try hard enough.
But in many fields, especially sports, this is hardly the case.
Recent Penn graduate Nick Italiano, doesn't have the physical stats which would make any Major League Baseball scout take notice. Standing at just 5'10", he would rank among only the 20 of 72 Major League second basemen under 5'11".
But Italiano's production for the Quakers on the field should have been enough to make even the most skeptical of scouts take interest.
A small sampling of his statistics -- All-East Coast Athletic Conference, All-Ivy for four years, Penn's all-time hits leader, winner of the 2003 Blair Batting Title for the Ivy Leaguer with the highest batting average (.420), 2003 South Jersey Athlete of the Year -- are nearly unprecedented.
And yet, Italiano was not one of the 1,480 players taken in the Major League Baseball First Year Player Draft.
"He's not 6'5" [and size is] such a strong point they look for," Penn baseball coach Bob Seddon said. " But he's one of the finest players Penn's ever had. At Penn he was not only a model athlete on the field, but a model student in the classroom."
"I sometimes wonder exactly what they are looking for."
Unfortunately, Major League scouts are looking for just what Italiano lacks; something they call "upside."
"We try to look into player projection," Philadelphia Phillies scout Gene Schall said. "We try to predict what a player will be like after we can fully mold his physical attributes."
To scouts, a player has a higher upside if he is physically gifted, almost regardless of other qualities.
Penn pitcher Russ Brocato -- who, at 3-3 with a hefty 7.34 Earned Run Average, had stats not nearly as impressive as Italiano's -- was selected by the Baltimore Orioles in the 29th round almost solely due to his ability to sometimes throw above 90 miles per hour.
But is this the best method of selecting future Major Leaguers?
Many don't think so.
"They think they can take a physically strong player and develop them," Seddon said. "I'm not sold on that. There are other things that come into play -- temperment, how they adjust to traveling, and maturity."
Even Schall admits to flaws in this system.
"There are two things a scout can't see into -- a player's mind and heart," he said.
Luckily, for Italiano, Schall was able to perhaps catch a glimpse of these two seemingly undetectable attributes. The scout signed the Penn standout on June 13.
While Italiano's hard work and determination seems to have paid off, it sheds some light on a particularly distressing issue for other overachieving athletes who might not catch the eye of a Major League scout.
One reason baseball is known as America's pastime is because, in many ways, it represents the American dream: that anyone from anywhere can succeed with a lot of hard work.
But with baseball's current emphasis on power, the hard working Italianos of the world are often left stranded at third.
Baseball should not forget the importance of hard work, and it only has to look as far as one of the league's biggest stars, Greg Maddux, to see that 'mind and heart' sometimes make all the difference.
Maddux -- a four-time Cy Young Award winner -- lacks any of the speed or strength that all scouts are looking for.
"If he was coming out of college right now, I probably wouldn't draft him," Schall said.
This makes one wonder how many future Hall of Famers who can't throw in the 90's or hit the long ball -- basic requirements for players to get drafted -- never got their chance.
So what can scouts do to change this trend?
Seddon believes that Major League franchises must talk with college coaches, something they rarely do.
"Most college coaches don't talk with scouts because they think 'these guys are stealing my player'," he said. "But a coach that's had a player like Nick for a long time has a very good read that a scout just can't get."
Scouts must also look at a player's pattern of success at the collegiate level.
Schall notes that the Majors are starting to pay more attention to on-field statistics since the success of the Oakland Athletics' scouting program, documented in the new book Money Ball.
"We can't just look at any player anymore and say, 'He's gonna be a Major Leaguer,'" Schall said. "Now a lot of teams are not focusing on player projection and are rewarding athletes for working hard."
So while it appears that Italiano has finally made it to the other side of the mountain, his story might not have such a happy ending.
He will have no room for error in his first few weeks of rookie ball in Clearwater, Fla. due to his low-salary contract.
"He didn't get a lot of money, so it's not that big of an investment for the Phillies," Seddon said. "If they gave him more money, they'd have more patience with him."
Even if Italiano fails to make it to the big leagues, he is far from a failure, since there is no reason to doubt that he gave it his all. But no one should doubt his ability to make it all the way. He thinks he can, and he's already proven that to succeed, that's more than enough.
