FSU Baseball: Buster Posey cements legacy with latest All-Star selection

FSU baseball fans will get the treat of seeing maybe the greatest player in program history add to his resume with another All-Star Game appearance.

In the history of FSU baseball – with the hundreds of players who went on to go from the Seminoles to the professional game – just 13 times in the past have the Seminoles been represented in the annual mid-summer classic of Major League Baseball known as the All-Star Game.

That number becomes 14 on Tuesday when San Francisco Giants catcher Buster Posey will be in Washington D.C. to take part in the game for the sixth time in his less than 10 year career in the majors. That’s right, one player has nearly half of the total number of All-Star game appearances for those who used to wear garnet and gold.

What Posey’s selection to the mid-summer classic for two thirds of his MLB career does is also pretty much close the book on one issue: he is the best Major League Baseball player to come out of the FSU baseball program.

Already, Posey was in the conversation for the best player to play for the Seminoles in the college game based on a monster 2008 season that saw him win awards as the top player in the game before being drafted in the first round by the Giants. However, in many of the record books he trailed other Seminoles who played more seasons in Tallahassee and had a great season to pad stats.

There is no doubt now that Posey will – for the foreseeable future – be regarded as the best professional player to have come from the grass of Dick Howser Stadium. In just his ninth season with San Francisco after spending less than a year and a half in the minors, this what he has accomplished:

• Three World Series Titles
• 2012 National League MVP
• Six time selections to All-Star Game
• Four Silver Slugger Awards
• 2016 Gold Glove Award winner
• 2010 National League Rookie of the Year

There are players who spend decades in the game that don’t accomplish half of what the former FSU baseball star has done in less than nine full seasons – remember, he missed most of 2011 after a horrific leg injury on a dirty play from former Florida Marlins player Scott Cousins – in the majors.

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At the age of 31, Posey still has plenty of seasons left in the sport – especially if he eventually gets moved from catcher more to a field position, where his knees can survive a lot easier. You can guarantee that Posey, five years after his eventual retirement, will become the first former FSU baseball star to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.