MLB scout: Tom Brady had big-league tools as a catcher

How different would history in two sports have been had Tom Brady followed the baseball path instead of opting to play football at the University of Michigan?

Tom Brady can join an exclusive group of quarterbacks with a fourth Super Bowl victory on Sunday.

The New England Patriots star would join Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana as the only quarterbacks with four Super Bowl victories and, as it is, he will be the first signal-caller to start in six big games at the end.

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But it could have been much different.

People forget that Brady was an 18th-round draft pick of the Montreal Expos in the 1995 amateur draft and at least one scout thought he had the goods to make it all the way to the major leagues.

Former Expos scout John Hughes, now with the Miami Marlins, remembers seeing a 17-year-old catcher doing his thing at Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo, Calif., the same high school that produced big-leaguers Barry Bonds and Gregg Jefferies.

“You were like, ‘Wow, this kind of fits the bill,’” Hughes told MLB.com. “He could throw. He could receive well. He was a left-handed hitter who had some pull power.”

But Brady was going to Michigan to play football and everyone knew it.

That didn’t stop the Expos from drafting Brady and making a pitch.

“I think he would have been a prom” Hughes said. “He had all the intangibles. He could throw, left-handed power. There is no reason to think this guy couldn’t have been a big league catcher.”

How different is the NFL history book if Brady had signed with Montreal instead of heading to Ann Arbor?

Hughes has thought about it, telling friends after Brady’s second Super Bowl victory in 2004, “I could have ruined NFL history if I signed this guy.”

Brady went so far as to work out for the Expos and Hughes at old Candlestick Park after the 1995 draft.

But he wanted to be a quarterback and that has really worked out OK for him.

Brady was famously the seventh quarterback taken in the 2000 NFL Draft, going to the Patriots with the 199th overall pick.

The household names taken before Brady included Chad Pennington, Giovanni Carmazzi, Chris Redman, Tee Martin, Marc Bulger and Spergon Wynn.

There were 44 catchers drafted ahead of Brady in that 1995 amateur draft, with 12 of them eventually reaching the majors, most prominently Brian Schneider, a left-handed hitting catcher chosen by the Expos in the fifth round. Schneider played parts of 13 seasons in MLB with Montreal, the Washington Nationals, New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies from 2000-12.

He hit .247/.320/.369 with 67 homers in 3,570 career plate appearances.

But how weird would that have been to hear … “Now batting for the Expos, the catcher, No. 12, Tom Brady.”

Perhaps somewhere in an alternate universe …

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