The 7-foot-4 college hoops star who could have been a pitcher

Zach Edey is a star for Purdue's men's basketball team.

If you don't know who he is or what he looks like, it's hard to miss him. He's 7-foot-4, 300 pounds -- the tallest player in college basketball and likely one of the tallest people you'll ever see in real life.

The senior leads the entire country in scoring, averaging 25.0 points per game, and is second in the nation with 12.2 rebounds per contest. He's at the center of a Boilermakers team that is in just the third Final Four in program history and first since 1980.

But there was once a very good chance none of his basketball success would have ever happened.

Growing up in the small Canadian neighborhood of Leaside in Toronto -- about a 20-minute drive from Joey Votto's hometown -- Edey never really thought of the sport. It wasn't the game burning through his community's veins. Another activity, a separate pastime had already attached itself to his heart.

"Yeah, Zach was basically in love with baseball from Day 1," former coach Eric Stickney told me in a phone call.

Jeff Wolburgh was actually the one who first sought out Edey for baseball. He spotted him one day on the soccer field while holding Little League practice.

"All of a sudden, I look over and see this giant, massive kid that's playing soccer," Wolburgh told me. "I find the parents and within 30 minutes of persuasion, I have the kid trying out for baseball."

Wolburgh and Stickney coached Edey at various levels during those early-to-late teenage years, with great support and involvement from Edey's parents.

As you may have guessed, at 8 or 9 years old, Edey already stood out on the baseball diamond.

He was a foot taller than everybody else his age -- towering over some of his teachers and coaches. That made him an incredibly intimidating figure at the plate.

"It was definitely like a safety concern when he played," Stickney recalled. "You would really worry about the safety of the other team's pitcher if he was able to get ahold of one and hit a line drive."

"This guy was hitting a ball right through the shortstop, not many people would stand in its way," Wolburgh laughed. "He hit the ball like an adult. He hit the ball so hard on the ground it would even go through the outfielders."

"Pitchers should've been wearing shin guards or had a hockey helmet on," Stickney said.

The scariness contradicted with Zach's personality -- both coaches said he was the nicest, most soft-spoken kid. A "gentle giant."

Unsurprisingly, Edey also proved to be a fairly good target playing first base. It was hard to make a throw that didn't get gathered up inside his wingspan. Edey played hockey in the winters and Stickney thinks that likely helped him with his footwork and long stretching around the bag.

But a few years later, when kids started pitching, that was when Edey really shined.

His arm strength, combined with his release point being so close to the plate helped him dominate the much smaller batters around the league.

"He was throwing 10, 12 mph faster than every other kid," Wolburgh remembered.

At 14 years old, Edey's baseball career really took off. He was getting great baseball instruction, his fundamentals were coming together and, well, he grew another 10 inches from 6 feet to about 6-foot-10.

That's like getting up to the plate and seeing Randy Johnson staring at you from the mound. As an eighth grader.

"He was throwing, I'd say, probably high 70s," Wolburgh said. "He was throwing equal to the best kids, but definitely had a little better velocity than most."

Something that also helped Edey's pitching? Giant hands.

"He had a heavy ball, big hands," Stickney told me. "He could spin the ball really well."

Edey could hold seven baseballs in one hand, à la Johnny Bench. One in his hand seemingly disappeared. It looked more like a golf ball.

By the time Edey was 15, he was considered one of the better baseball players in Canada. He was throwing in the 80s off the mound and hitting with hard velocity at the plate. Stickney compared him to former 6-foot-10 pitcher and current Texas Rangers GM Chris Young on the rubber and Aaron Judge in the batter's box. Wolburgh was getting asked at every away game where Zach's birth certificate was.

But ... another question also kept popping up. From teammates, opposing teams, umpires and fans: Do you play basketball?

Edey had always stayed away from the sport on principle.

"It's what every tall person does, so I didn't want to do it," he told The Athletic a few years ago.

But when you're a junior in high school, you're hovering above seven feet and recruiters are handing out cards to you at travel baseball tournaments, it's probably time to think about which sport your future might lie in.

"Everybody was kind of saying the same thing: 'Zach, you've got a million-dollar golden ticket,'" Stickney recalled.

Edey played his first real basketball game when he was a sophomore at Leaside High School. He quickly learned to love the game -- and being super athletic and, of course, taller than everyone else on the court, he was great. He still played baseball for Stickney's teams until around age 17 and 18, but he was starting to outgrow the sport. Literally.

Here's Edey from an interview with Watch Stadium last year.

“I was growing so much, losing muscle mass, and I couldn’t hit,” Edey said. “I was uncoordinated because of the amount of size I put on. My eye line changed, everything changed. I was still pitching fairly well, but had a lot of arm, shoulder and elbow problems. I was throwing too hard for where my muscle development was at, and I lost a lot of my love for the sport because I felt like I was outgrowing it.”

The seven-footer went to IMG Academy to develop his basketball skills, got a full scholarship to Purdue and the rest is history. Edey has the most double-doubles in school history and is just the sixth player in the Big Ten to ever record 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. He's predicted to be a mid-first to second-round pick in this summer's NBA Draft.

Still, his coaches wonder what would've happened if "The Big Maple" had continued pursuing baseball. Although the future would've been a bit more uncertain than on the hardwood, the talent was there. And so was the passion.

"There's no doubt in my mind that he would've and could've gotten to the States for baseball," Stickney said. "Yeah, he probably would've ended up getting a pretty good offer from a pretty good school to play college ball. And then, really at that point, the destiny is in your own hands to see what you can do at that level."

"I think he could've gone somewhere if he didn't stop," Wolburgh told me. "Definitely D-1 college. He was on a pathway for D1 ... I think he was on his way to baseball stardom."