Naturally, the academy initiative was widely disparaged, both by some elements inside the organization and by rival teams. “Most clubs thought it was a waste of time, waste of money, wouldn’t work,” Stewart says. The Royals’ experiment ruffled even more feathers when the academy sent a team to the Gulf Coast League in 1971 to compete against rookie clubs from several other organizations. Even though seven of its twenty-eight members hadn’t played baseball in high school and the others had been passed over in the amateur draft, the academy team went 40–13, winning the league championship and
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