Buddy Biancalana, 1978, baseball—Biancalana played baseball all four of his years at Redwood, 1975 through 1978, garnering local and national honors along the way. In 1977 he was named to the Mythical National Champion Team, a squad composed of the best high school baseball players in America.

His senior year, 1978, was a “wonder year,” filled with acclaim. He was named simultaneously to the NCS and California State All-Star teams, and to the first team of the Worth All American squad. Weeks later, he was drafted in the first round by the Kansas City Royals of the American league and played in his first Major League game in September 1982.
Biancalana played shortstop for the Royals from 1982 to 1987, and finished his big league career with the Houston Astros in 1987. In the fabled 1985 World Series that the Royals pulled out against the St. Louis Cardinals 4 games to 3, Biancalana, who had played only 35 regular season games, capped an error-free 14-game post-season effort with a .278 batting average and an on-base percentage of .435. 

In 1985, as Pete Rose closed in on Ty Cobb’s record of 4,191 lifetime base hits, TV talk show host David Letterman introduced his “Buddy Biancalana Countdown Calendar,” tracking Biancalana’s progress toward the same goal. Biancalana, whose 113 lifetime base hits fell more than 4,000 short of either Rose or Cobb, took the spoof well. Appearing on Late Night With David Letterman, he told his amused host, “I’m closer to Cobb than you are to Carson.”

Today, Biancalana lives in Fairfield, Iowa, a farming town about halfway between Des Moines to the west and Peoria, Ill., to the east. From there he participates as a partner in Perfect Mind-Perfect Motion (www.pmpmsports.com), a sports consultancy that teaches athletes how to attain by design the peak moments that they usually experience by chance. Clients have included the St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Lee Janzen and other professional and amateur athletes.