PORT CHARLOTTE, Fla. _ Watch Tommy Pham play for the couple years he was in St. Louis, or the couple months he was with the Rays last season, or even for a couple minutes.
What you are struck by is how much intensity he plays with, how driven, focused, even angry, he looks.
"Tommy has been hungry to be great since Day 1," said Mike Shildt, his Cardinals major and minor league manager. "He's very driven. ... Some people would say it's hard to maintain that level of intensity. Generally speaking, I would say that's true. But that doesn't relate to Tommy Pham. That's who Tommy Pham is. ... Tommy Pham is always on."
What you may not know is why. None of us can fully understand, which Pham makes clear when he agrees to talk briefly about the unusual background that shaped him.
The fractured family situation framed by a teenaged mom and a dad in jail. The degenerative eye condition that distorted his vision and threatened his career. The frustration of spending nine years in the minors that nearly drove him to quit.
"It comes," said Pham, who turns 31 Friday, "from everything I've been through in life."
