Top 25 High Schools That Have Produced the Most MLB Players

Some high schools are prep baseball factories with pipelines to the major leagues. But unlike their football and basketball counterparts that send players to the NFL and NBA, the baseball high schools are spread throughout North America and include schools from cities outside of the United States.

The Dominican Republic and Venezuela rank first and second, respectively, among foreign countries in producing MLB players, so it’s no surprise they also are represented with high schools. But what may be a surprise to some is how often California appears. Florida is the only other state with multiple schools, while Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio and Illinois each have one.

These high schools have produced the most major league players. Did your school make the cut?

No high school has produced more Baseball Hall of Famers than McClymonds. The Oakland school is tied with six other schools by sending two players to Cooperstown: Frank Robinson and Ernie Lombardi.

Robinson was part of an All-Star outfield at McClymonds as he patrolled the field alongside Vada Pinson and Curt Flood, who each also became multi-time All-Stars in the big leagues. Those three combined for 21 of the school’s 29 All-Star Game appearances with the other eight going to Lombardi.

In addition to being teammates with Pinson and Flood (who later transferred and graduated from Oakland Tech), Robinson also played basketball, and you may have heard of one of his hoops teammates, Bill Russell.

Joe Abreu (1942)
Charlie Beamon (1956-58)
Curt Flood (1956-71)
Jesse Gonder (1960-67)
Lee Lacy (1972-87)
Ernie Lombardi (1931-47)
Vada Pinson (1958-75)
Aaron Pointer (1963-67)
Curt Roberts (1954-56)
Frank Robinson (1956-76)
Willie Tasby (1958-63)
Bill Wight (1946-58)

The numbers in parentheses are a player’s years in MLB. Baseball Hall of Famers are in bold.

Venezuela is the only other country outside of the United States and the Dominican Republic to land on this list. Caracas is the capital city, and its principal school was a pipeline from Venezuela to the States for a 20-year span.

All 12 players made their MLB debuts between 1985 and 2005, including three-time All-Star player and World Series-winning manager Ozzie Guillen. There’s not much in terms of notoriety outside of Guillen, who had 1764 career hits and accounted for over 60 percent of the Caracas alums’ hits in the majors. Catcher Dioner Navarro is No. 2 with 802 career hits.

Another player of note is Michel Hernandez, who was a September call-up in 2003 and got in five games at the end of the season. He then went back to the minors where he toiled away for five years before getting another call-up at the end of the 2008 season. He finally became a part of the 25-man roster in the 2009 season and hit his first homer at 30 years old.

Juan Castillo (1994)
Alejandro Freire (2005)
Ozzie Guillen (1985-2000)
Carlos Hernandez (1999-2000)
Michel Hernandez (2003-09)
Urbano Lugo (1985-90)
Robert Machado (1996-2004)
Dioner Navarro (2004-16)
Alex Pacheco (1996)
Alex Prieto (2003-04)
Alex Ramirez (1998-2000)
Eduardo Villacis (2004)