At the time, his home run didn’t seem any different from the others he had hit that summer. Josh Reddick lofted a pitch from Ross Detwiler, who one year later would be the sixth overall pick in the 2007 Major League Baseball draft, over the wall at Lassiter High School in Marietta, GA, on a summer day in mid-July of 2006.

While the scouts had come to watch Detwiler’s Team USA take on Reddick’s Georgia Collegiate All-Stars, the questions started circulating about the kid named Reddick. Reddick’s home run was the only run the All-Stars would get off of Team USA and Detwiler in a 14-1 rout that day.

Yet for Reddick, the final outcome was an afterthought. He went 3-for-5 against a team comprised of the best college players in the country. Scouts buzzed about the Red Sox’ still-unsigned 17th round draft pick.

Within minutes, Red Sox director of amateur scouting Jason McLeod was receiving phone calls from other MLB scouting directors suggesting that he sign Reddick before they got the chance to pursue him. While most scouts in attendance were cursing themselves at not noticing the skinny kid earlier, the Red Sox had nailed him.

Thanks in part to their detailed efforts to learn about a player who was unknown to most, the Sox worked out a deal with Reddick and signed him for $140,000 on August 8, just three weeks after that game and two days before he was to return to his team at Middle Georgia College.

“This kid was a raw junior college kid who (Red Sox scouts) dug out of nowhere,” said Mike Hazen, the Red Sox farm director. “It’s a true scouting story. It’s a true, good evaluation, a gut instinct signing.”

And so began the professional career of Josh Reddick. The 22-year-old rookie was called back up to the Red Sox on Wednesday, his third call-up of the year. That is three more trips to the majors – with more to come – than nearly anyone expected during an amateur career spent in obscurity. His is the story of a player who in three years has come from a small junior college to a growing role in the future of one of the most storied franchises in baseball.

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