Galley: Halifax native Doucette was drafted by Cards in 1992
November 15, 2020
By Allen Galley
Most of the information in this post is from the Daily News archives from June 1992.
On June 1, 1992, Darren Doucette was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 25th round (699th overall) in the MLB Amateur Draft.
Doucette, 20 years old at the time, was playing for the Dartmouth Moosehead Dry of the Nova Scotia Senior League that spring after finishing his college season at Ulster College in New York state. During the college season, he hit .308 with four homers and 31 RBIs in 37 games. He was a NCAA Division 3 All-American. He had received two scholarship offers from Division 1 schools but signed a contract with St. Louis instead.
Doucette would sign a minor league contract the next week and reported to the Cardinals’ New York Penn League class-A Short-Season affiliate in Hamilton, Ont. (the Redbirds). He would receive $800 a month with a four-figure signing bonus.
On June 15, Doucette got a single in the seventh inning on opening day (against the St. Catharines Blue Jays) in a 1-0 win. He led the team in home runs and RBIs for much of the season until an arm injury ended his rookie campaign.
Quotes:
“I am excited, I’ll, tell you that. I wasn’t expecting St. Louis” – Doucette, on getting drafted.
“I just got my bags unpacked, now they’re almost packed again” – Doucette, on returning from college, then heading away to Hamilton.
“The Cardinals took my family to dinner and afterwards we went over the contract from about 10 pm to 4 a.m. (The length of discussions) wasn’t a matter of not being happy with the offer. We had to go over a lot of details. There was a lot of reading between the lines.”