Major league players emerge from all corners of the world. But how many come from the middle of nowhere? Roy Oswalt can claim this distinction. Overlooked, ignored and teased as a scrawny teen from a town with a triple-digit population, he gritted his teeth and pitched his way from total obscurity to an Olympic gold medal and back-to-back 20-win seasons. In doing so, Roy has truly done the impossible—put his hometown on the map. His next feat? Lead the Houston Astros to their first world championship. This is his story…

GROWING UP

Roy Edwards Oswalt was born on August 29, 1977, in Weir, Mississippi to Jean and Billie Joe Oswalt. His hometown had a population of around 500. He grew up in a quiet, secure environment where everyone knew everyone else, people worked and played hard, and life was pretty simple.

Roy was always very athletic, but never very big. “Scrawny” is a word you often see when people talk about him. He could throw the heck out of the ball, however, so in schoolyard games he usually ended up playing quarterback or pitcher. With the pressure on, he was the kid who usually seemed to come throughin the clutch. When challenged, Roy was able to bump his performance up a notch. The same is true today.

Roy never had much in the way of formal baseball coaching. He would size up a hitter, figure out his weakness and then just go after him. He delivered the ball from a strange, wide-open stance which put a lot of stress on his lower body. But no one worried much about his future in baseball—he seemed too small and skinny for that to be a concern.

Despite his size, Roy’s boyhood dream was to play baseball for Mississippi State. He really got into the sport at about the same time the Bulldogs had their great team in the early 1980s. Their stars—Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Bobby Thigpen and Jeff Brantley—were all familiar names to him.

There were around 30 students in Roy’s class at Weir High. The school actually had a decent football team, and Roy was one of its stars. But there was no baseball team when he enrolled. Only after months of badgering was Billy Joe able to convince the school to start one, and it didn’t practice for the first ime until Roy's sophomore year.

When boys from bigger schools played Weir in sports, they made fun of its size. When the Lions trotted out Roy as its top athlete, they laughed at him, too. This was always a mistake. Roy seethed at the taunting, and would devise ways not just to beat opponents, but to make them look bad in the process.

By his junior season, Roy was reaching in the mid 80s with his fastball and, more important, throwing just about any pitch he tried for a strike. This should have at least interested some college coaches, but the recruiting calls never came. Roy’s parents even sent him to baseball camp at Mississippi State one summer, and though he threw as well as anyone there, coaches looked at his slight frame and his hometown and lost interest.

Roy stood 5-10 and tipped the scales at 150 as a senior at Weir High. Despite lights-out numbers, his small stature scared teams away. Add to the fact that Weir was just too far off the beaten path, and it was no secret why almost every scout stayed away. One who did show up (at the behest of Weir’s football coach) was Kenny Dupont, who bird-dogged for the Baltimore Orioles. Dupont had just signed on to be the pitching coach at Holmes Community College in nearby Goodman. He offered Roy a chance at college ball, and he took it.

Roy gained strength and experience at Holmes, but failed to draw much attention among Division-I coaches and pro teams. The only scout who believed in him was James Farrar, a college professor who did some talent evaluation on the side for the Astros. He spotted Roy, convinced the Houston brass he had potential, then determined that no other team even knew he existed.

The Astros would have used a high pick on Roy, but gambled and let him slide down during the 1996 draft. They finally pulled the trigger in the 23rd round. Hoping to improve his lot, Roy decided to play a second season for Holmes. When he pitched well enough for Mississippi State coach Ron Polk to offer a full ride, he was faced with an agonizing choice. Go pro or fulfill his boyhood dream? Houston made the decision easy when they put a half mil on the table as a signing bonus. Now that he was a known commodity, they did not want him going back into the draft. Roy packed his bags for the minors.

Roy’s first stop was with the Astros’ Gulf Coast League team. In five starts he was ridiculous, giving up two earned runs and striking out a batter an inning. He moved to the organization’s team in Auburn of the NY-Penn League and went 2-4 the rest of the way. The following year, in 1998, Roy made the same two stops, finishing with a 5-6 record in 15 starts with an ERA just above 2.00.

Roy began to move up the ladder in 1999, when he spent the entire year with Class-A Michigan of the Midwest League. He led the Battle Cats with 13 victories against four defeats, despite a sore shoulder that nagged him all year. After pitching in the league playoffs, he could barely lift his arm above his head. On his drive back to Mississippi all he could think about was going under the knife.

That winter, Roy schedule a surgical consult with doctors. Before his appointment, he was fixing his pickup truck and put his right hand in a place he shouldn’t have. Roy grabbed an exposed wire, and was electrocuted. He tumbled off the bucket he was using as a step, and when he came to his senses, he noticed that his right arm was pain-free. He still went to the doctor, who confirmed that he was really healed. The theory was that the jolt loosened scar tissue that had been causing the discomfort.

Roy began his fourth pro season with Class-A Kissimmee of the Florida State League. The Cobras played in virtually privacy, drawing fewer than 500 fans to the games in Houston’s spring training complex. Roy was cruising along with four wins and a 2.98 ERA when he was called up to Class-AA Round Rock of the Texas League for an emergency start. He literally had his return ticket to Florida in hand when he reported to manager Jackie Moore. Moore slapped him on the back and told him to go long enough to hand the game over to the bullpen. Nine innings later, Roy had himself a 15-K shutout and the Express had a new ace. The ticket to Kissimmee went unused.

Round Rock was owned by Nolan Ryan. In their first Texas League season, the Express drew over 10,000 a game when Roy was pitching—20 times the crowds that cheered him on in Kissimmee. The league was known as a hitter’s circuit, but Round Rock pitching was dominant, and the Express finished first behind Roy’s 11-4 record and league-best 1.94 ERA and 141 strikeouts. He was named the league’s top prospect and, along with Keith Ginter and Morgan Ensberg, paced the club to the championship with a convincing series victory over the Wichita Wranglers.

In September, Roy joined a group of minor leaguers who formed the U.S. Olympic team. Manager Tom Lasorda’s job was to whip them into a cohesive unit. Using Ben Sheets as a centerpiece, he built a competent club that won five out of six games to reach the gold medal final against the heavily favored Cubans. Sheets twirled a three-hit 4-0 shutout and Team USA was the unexpected champion. Roy allowed just two runs in two starts during the tournament. After it was all over, Lasorda told him he was ready to pitch in the big leagues.

Roy had a good spring in 2001 and was promoted to Class-AAA New Orleans. After five starts he was called up by the Astros, which had a power-laden team built for its new homer-happy ballpark. The Houston pitching staff was led by veteran Shane Reynolds and young gun Wade Miller, with Billy Wagner, Mike Jackson and Octavio Dotel in the bullpen. Basically, the starters had to go six, and the relievers would take it from there.

Roy added depth to the relieving corps. He picked the brains of his teammates, findout everything he could about pitching to major league hitters. Roy won twice during May, prompting manager Larry Dierker to move him into the starting rotation in early June. Once Roy got the ball, he took off. The Astros won his first eight starts, marking only the third time in history this happened.

In all, Roy made 20 starts and went 12-2, for a final record of 14-3 with an ERA of 2.73 and 144 K's in 142 innings. He showed command of five pitches—a four-seamer and two-seamer, curve, slider and change. He varied speeds like a veteran, making it hard for enemy batters to dig in and take their best cuts. Roy’s 6-to-1 strikeout to walk ratio, not to mention his 2.15 ERA at Enron Field, caused many onlookers to forget he was a rookie.

The Astros spent September in a dogfight with the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, and won the division with a 93-69 record. Unfortunately, Roy went down with a groin injury and was unavailable for the playoffs. He watched as his teammates were shut down by the Atlanta Braves in three straight.

In almost any other season, Roy would have been a hands-down pick for Rookie of the Year. But this was Albert Pujols’s first season, and the St. Louis slugger put up historic numbers.

Heading into 2002, Dierker was replaced with Jimy Williams and Roy was poised to become Houston's ace. He fulfilled this goal, but not under the conditions he had envisioned. The Astros were simply horrible. Lance Berkman was the only player who hit well all year, while the starting staff was plagued by inconsistency and injuries. Roy was the team’s shining star, starting fast and heating up in July and August with nine straight wins. Houston launched a brief run at the Cardinals in late summer, but faded in September and wound up at 84-78.

Roy ended the year with a 19-9 record and 3.01 ERA, and notched 208 strikeouts in 233 innings. He probably would have won 20 with Dierker in the dugout, but Williams had a quick hook with his young pitchers. Roy got stuck on 19 in early September and could not win in his final four starts. Ironically, the pitcher who denied him win #20 on his last start was Wayne Franklin—the player who was sent to the minors to make room for Roy the year before.

Many were predicting a Cy Young award for Roy in 2003, but it turned out to be a year of great frustration. His old groin injury cropped again, limiting him to 21 starts. Actually, the night he strained it in the first inning against the New York Yankees, five relievers backed him up to register an historic no-hitter. The Yanks had gone a record 6,980 games without being blanked until the Astros did it.

When Roy was healthy, he was great. In 127 innings, he went 10-5 with a 2.97 ERA and 108 strikeouts. The Astros fixed their offensive woes with the addition of Jeff Kent and the return to health of Jeff Bagwell. Still, they fell one victory short of the division title, and the Cubs grabbed a playoff spot in front of them. Roy, a team player to a fault, stated publicly that he believed he had cost the Astros the pennant.

The Astros landed Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte over the winter, making Roy the best number-three starter in baseball (thought he did get the ball Opening Day). Naturally, they were favored to win the NL Central. However, they broke from the gate slowly, while St. Louis set a blazing pace. With Houston left eating Cardinal dust, Williams lost his job. Phil Garner stepped into the skipper’s slot and the Astros began to play to their potential. In a truly wild Wild Card finish, they won 26 of their final 46 games to edge the Cubs, Phillies, Padres and Giants.

Pettitte fought an elbow injury all season long, but Clemens was great, leading the league with an .833 winning percentage and copping the Cy Young. Roy was just as big a story, topping the NL with 20 wins. He fanned 206 hitters in 237 innings and had a solid 3.49 ERA. He also pitched in his first All-Star Game, thanks to the fans, who voted him onto the team as the 25th man.

Roy made two starts against the Braves in the Division series. He ended up on the losing end of a 4-2 score in Game 2, but got the win in Game 5, enabling the Astros to advance in the post-season for the first time in team history. In the NLCS against the Cardinals, Roy started Game 4, which the Astros won 5-4. Brandon Backe pitched a shutout a night later, meaning Houston needed just one more win to reach the World Series. St. Louis eked out an extra-inning victory in Game 6 and beat up Clemens in the decider. Roy came in to pitch relief but it was too late, as the Cards won 5-2.

The Astros repeated as the NL Wild Card in 2005 despite suffering huge losses on offense. Kent and Carlos Beltran—the hero of the ’04 post-season—departed via free agency, and injuries to Bagwell and Berkman reduced them to mere mortal status. Morgan Ensberg had a career year to keep Houston afloat early, and just as they had the previous season, the Astros finished with a flourish to lock up a post-season berth despite a miserable 15-30 start.

They earned their invite to the dance with pitching. Pettitte was awesome in the second half and Clemens posted an ERA under 2.00. Brad Lidge was nearly unhittable in relief, while everyone else on the staff pitched decently down the stretch. Roy paced the club with 20 victories again, and was almost unbeatable at home. He turned in a 2.94 ERA and fanned 184 batters.

In the Division Series, the Astros and Braves played again. After splitting the first two games, Roy won the third, 7-3. The only trouble he had on the mound was of his own doing—he fell down during a pitch. The Astros finished off the Braves in an 18-inning marathon to advance to the NLCS versus the Cardinals for the second straight year.

After Pettitte got battered in Game 1, Roy rescued the Astros with a gem the following day. Houston rode this wave of momentum to two straight wins when they returned home. But Lidge coughed up a two-run lead with two out in the ninth in Game 5. If the Astros are to finally end their championship drought, Roy may have to do it all himself.

To the surprise of no one in the Astro clubhouse, Roy has stolen the spotlight from many of his more famous teammates. Of course, guys like Clemens and Pettitte couldn't be happier for him. It's always easy to root for the underdog, espeically when he competes like a superhero.

Roy is a student of hitters, not just from start to start, but from pitch to pitch. He watches a batter’s body language and tries to read his facial expression for clues about what he’s thinking or which pitch he’s looking for. This has resulted in some stare-downs, as batters sometimes think he’s trying to intimidate them.

Roy can get his fastball up into the mid 90s, while his curve snaps over at around 75 miles per hour. This incredible differential has made many a hitter look bad. In 2004, he began varying the speeds of his breaking pitches, making the almost impossible to hit even when a batter guesses right. His unusual delivery only makes him tougher.

Although Roy does not give up many hits or issue many walks, he does not mind putting guys on base. He attacks the strike zone as aggressively as anyone in the league, so he knows that control won't get him into a deeper jam.

Roy is a perfectionist in all aspects of the game. He practices fielding bunts all around the mound, and will hit the cage for an hour if he fails to get one down himself. This commitment to excellent rubs of on his teammates, and gives them ultimate confidence in Roy when he takes the hill.