Kolten Wong | |||
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Wong with the St. Louis Cardinals
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St. Louis Cardinals – No. 16 | |||
Second baseman/Outfielder | |||
Born: Hilo, Hawaii |
October 10, 1990 |||
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MLB debut | |||
August 16, 2013, for the St. Louis Cardinals | |||
MLB statistics (through 2016 season) |
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Batting average | .248 | ||
Home runs | 28 | ||
Runs batted in | 126 | ||
Stolen bases | 45 | ||
Teams | |||
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Career highlights and awards | |||
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Kolten Kaha Wong (born October 10, 1990) is an American professional baseball second baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He made his MLB debut in 2013. He bats left-handed and throws right-handed.
From Hilo, Hawaii, Wong starred in baseball at Kamehameha Hawaii High School and for the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The Cardinals selected Wong in the first round of the 2011 MLB draft, and promoted him to the major leagues two years later. He has become the Cardinals' starting second baseman, and was named the National League Rookie of the Month for May 2014. He is currently signed through 2020 with a team option for 2021.
Kolten Wong is the son of Kaha Wong, who played college baseball at the University of Southern California (USC), and spent two years in the minor leagues with the Reno Silver Sox in Class-A. Despite batting .280 in 157 games, the elder Wong returned home to Hilo, Hawaii, to raise his family. He rose to prominence as a baseball coach in Hawaii. Instead of pursuing a steady career, he took whatever jobs would afford him the most time to teach Kolten the game and about working out, which he emphasized on a daily basis. In time, Kolten Wong befriended mixed martial artist and Ultimate Fighting Championship star B. J. Penn, whose father, Jay Dee Penn, correspondingly befriended Kaha Wong. The Penns ran a gym which allowed Kaha Wong to train children how to swing a bat. Kolten's paternal great-grandparents were Chinese.