Greg Nash
| Toe Nash | |||
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| Outfielder | |||
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Born: February 16, 1982 Baton Rouge, Louisiana |
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Gregory Nash (born February 16, 1982), nicknamed "Toe" or "Big Toe", is a retired professional baseball player. He played minor league baseball in the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (now Rays) organization in 2001. Standing at 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) and weighing 220 pounds (100 kg), Nash received his nickname due to his size 18 (US) shoes.
A high school dropout, Nash was discovered by the Devil Rays while playing in a semi-professional league in Sorrento, Louisiana. His life story seemed so improbable that baseball executives at first thought Nash was a hoax, similar to Sidd Finch. Despite his natural ability, compared to Babe Ruth, and the fictional Roy Hobbs character from The Natural, Nash's legal troubles shortened his professional career.
Nash is from Sorrento, Louisiana. His mother abandoned him when he was 12 years old, and his father Charles "Tuttie" Payton raised him along with his younger sister Joanna in a trailer home. Payton taught Nash to hit as a child using old socks and bottle caps in lieu of baseballs. He was expelled from two schools for fighting, and later dropped out of school altogether after being suspended for a fight in the eighth grade. In 1994 at the age of 12, Nash played in the Dixie Youth Tournament, a Little League tournament in Hammond, Louisiana. Standing 5 feet 10 inches (1.78 m) and weighing 140 pounds (64 kg), he struck out 17 of 21 batters he faced with a 70-mile-per-hour (110 km/h) fastball, and hit two home runs.Tampa Bay Devil Rays scout Benny Latino, a former college player at Southeastern Louisiana University whose hometown is Hammond, watched the game, and made a note to look for Nash in the future, assuming he would be a star in high school. As he did not attend high school, however, Nash fell into obscurity and Latino spent seven years looking for him.
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