In 1991, the San Francisco Giants used their 36th-round draft pick on Vincent Towns, an 18-year-old high school pitcher from Maryland.<\/p>\n
Towns pitched two seasons for the Giants\u2019 affiliate in the Arizona Summer League. He went 1-2 with a 6.20 ERA. He never pitched in affiliated baseball again.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
MORE: Georgia two-sport star, top-5 MLB draft pick, dies<\/a><\/p>\n Thirty-six years after he first was drafted, Towns was drafted again. Now 53, he was the first player chosen<\/a> in the Atlantic League draft on April 1.<\/p>\n The newest member of the Hagerstown (Md.) Flying Boxcars is twice the age of his peers in the independent minor league, but Towns refused to let his age deter his latent baseball ambitions.<\/p>\n When he was drafted by the Giants, Towns said<\/a> he was an orthodox pitcher, capable of throwing a fastball in the high-80-mph range.<\/p>\n \u201cBy the time I turned 40, I didn\u2019t get picked up, I had dropped a lot of my fastball,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cSo I said, well, it ain\u2019t over just because you get old, and it\u2019s not over just because you can\u2019t throw 90.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cSo I started throwing the knuckleball. For the last 13 years I\u2019ve been working on it, and finally I got it good enough to get drafted.\u201d<\/p>\n MORE: White Sox announcement leaves Ozzie Guillen in tears during MLB broadcast<\/a><\/p>\n Among independent minor leagues, the Atlantic League is considered a reliable training ground for young players who are passed over in the MLB<\/a> draft, or for those who wash out of the league and are trying to get back.<\/p>\n The Atlantic League\u2019s Long Island Ducks recently announced<\/a> they signed former National League Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer to be their Opening Day starter.<\/p>\n Still, it\u2019s basically unprecedented for a player in his 50s to use the Atlantic League as a means for getting back into affiliated pro baseball. According to Diamond Digest\u2019s Joel Arrick<\/a>, Towns was the only player older than 30 chosen in the Atlantic League draft.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n