More breathless anticipation of Strasburg

The Strasburg Watch is fully manned and there are plenty of seats on the bandwagon. Just check the gushing comments from a NL scout:

“The scary thing is he could develop a little more velocity in the next couple of years,” said a scout from a National League team. “He absolutely could be recognized as the fastest pitcher ever, at least since pitches have been clocked."

However, this article is not just a massive ego-stroke for Strasburg's brag book; there's a pretty good story about how he came into college unheralded and soft and turned himself into what he's quickly becomming.

Strasburg wasn’t always in such fast company. He’d been at San Diego State all of a week in 2006 and he was doubled over in the corner of the dugout, heaving and vomiting after a routine conditioning workout.

Tony Gwynn, the Hall of Famer and the Aztecs’ coach, shook his head. The sorry spectacle confirmed everything he feared about the freshman pitcher. Filter had convinced Gwynn to give a scholarship to Strasburg, a local kid nobody else wanted.

One thought kept coming back to Gwynn: How can somebody who throws so hard be so soft?

Sure, Strasburg could throw 91 mph, but he was a good 30 pounds overweight. He couldn’t run a few laps without getting sick. He didn’t know how to bench press. The school’s conditioning coach nicknamed him “Slothburg” and told him he ought to quit on the spot.

In addition, there's some comparison to other hard-throwing guys and the fates that befell them.

If Strasburg knows anything about Zumaya, Wohlers or Anderson, he doesn’t let on. If he realizes that none of them accomplished much more than a record reading on a radar gun, he doesn’t say. Zumaya is out again with another injury in a never-ending string. Wohlers lost his control and flamed out quickly. Anderson, the first pick in the 1997 draft, lost his velocity and career to a bum shoulder.