Grady Emerson is no ordinary teenager.
The most difficult things to do in sports just come naturally to the Fort Worth Christian shortstop.
And it’s why he’s the top high school prospect in the country.
“My day-to-day life, I would say, is probably 70% baseball, 20% school and 10% other stuff,” Emerson said.
Emerson has been called up to join Team USA’s U-15 and U-18 teams, and is projected to be a top three pick in this year’s MLB draft.
His obsession with baseball began at an extremely young age.
“When Grady was about 2 years old, my mom and dad bought him this Buzz Lightyear bat and ball,” Grady’s dad Brandon Emerson said. “That was the only toy he wanted to play with. He had a whole room of toys, and he just kept going back to that.”
“When he was in daycare, they would tell us that they had to work with him, saying ‘not everything is a baseball bat,” Grady’s mom Deanna Emerson said. “He would slide in the classrooms and stuff like that when he was little.”
“They found a bat for me and at first they thought it was going to be a way for me to get distracted, maybe a little tired so I can fall asleep, and then it ended up being a love,” Grady Emerson said. “The more I watched baseball, the more I played it, that was when I realized this is what I wanted to do in my life. Most parents yell at their kids saying you got to go work harder, you don’t want it enough. Whereas with me they’re like, you still got to be a kid, you don’t have to you don’t have to be there all the time.”
This year, Emerson has batted over 500 for the Cardinals while also flashing his five-tool talent.
His baseball heroics have caught the attention of MLB scouts, like White Sox Director of Scouting Mike Shirley and former Texas Rangers general manager Jon Daniels.
That said, the attention never overshadows the process for Grady.
“I just lean on my friends and family,” Grady said. “Just knowing kind of who I am at the heart and not what the environment sees me as. Obviously, I’ve done a lot of great things in the game of baseball so far. I’ve impacted some people hopefully. But I also want to be known as more than just a good baseball player. I want to be known as a great kid and a great human being.”
Someone who has been a positive influence is his coach.
One of the all-time Ranger greats and now the head coach at Fort Worth Christian, Rusty Greer saw Emerson’s big league potential immediately.
“I think everyone that’s watched him understands his skill,” Greer said. “He can run, he can hit, he can throw, he can defend. What I think people need to understand is that what makes those players really go and gives them the horse power they have is their desire – the intangibles. Once you become drafted and that becomes your job, you have to learn how to navigate those waters. You have to have that work ethic, which Grady does, to work and do what’s necessary to go into spring training to make that next club or make the big league roster.”
Even though Emerson is just 18 years old, scouts say he plays well beyond his years. You can make a lot of player comparisons, but one major leaguer that Emerson models his game after is fellow North Texas native Bobby Witt Jr. In fact, that’s who Emerson sees as a mentor.
“I went to watch him when I was 10 years old when he was playing his last year of high school baseball at Colleyville,” Grady said. “Getting the opportunity to sit down with him and Rusty at lunch was like a very big eye-opener for me.”
Grady will soon be following Witt’s footsteps, who was selected second overall in 2019.
The path to the big leagues is still a long and strenuous journey, but that’s not something Grady fears. It’s something he’s been waiting for his whole life.
“I know there will be some tears said on my part just because of pure joy of him reaching his dream he’s had since he was two,” Deanna Emerson said.
“Having been through that myself, you’ll never forget the day,” Greer said. “It’s kind of the justification and the culmination of all the work you’ve put in and all the pressure you’ve had to deal with.”
“I’ve been dreaming about it since I picked up that Buzz Lightyear bat,” Grady said, “To hear that and get to experience that moment is going to be a memory of a lifetime,definitely not going to be one I forget. It’s going to be one I cherish forever. That’s going to be a stepping stone in my life and my career and shaping what my life is going to look like. If I’m blessed enough to play professional baseball, that’s going to be the end goal for me: to be a hall of famer hopefully and play in the big leagues for a while. Knowing that’s my next step towards that is going to be second to none.”