This story was excerpted from Jessica Camerato’s Nationals Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

School is back in session, and students are discovering new interests as they begin the year. The Nationals looked back on their days in the classroom and shared what their favorite subjects were growing up.  

OF Alex Call: “I was a math kid. I’ve always liked numbers. I remember, we did basic multiplication tables and we would take tests all the way up from one times one to 12 times 12. I’ve still got all those locked in my memory. As we got into high school, I took AP calculus, and I loved that. I loved figuring things out and crunching the numbers. I’m still a numbers guy, so definitely math for me.”  

LHP Patrick Corbin: “I used to like math a lot. I think I was just good at it at a younger age in school, but then it got more difficult as it went and I kind of faded away from it. If I was to go back now, I think history would be it. Learning about the history of the United States would be something cool for me.”  

LHP MacKenzie Gore: “Math. [In] math, you have one answer. I wasn’t very good at ‘it could be this’ or ‘this is a better answer.’ Math, you’ve either got it or you don’t.”  

RHP Josiah Gray: “My favorite subject back in the day was history because I enjoyed learning about how the country was formed and everything like that. … I think the World Wars were really fascinating just because of all the countries involved -- World War I, especially, you had how it all broke down, the big pieces and how it all works together.”

3B Carter Kieboom: “My favorite subject in school was gym. I didn’t have to sit still, and I could move around. I always liked kickball -- it was a little bit of everything -- or capture the flag. Anything that required running. I was not one to sit.”

C Drew Millas: “My favorite subject in middle school was probably math. Then when I got into high school, physics. I love physics because it was kind of a combination of math and then in-world things; I could use my math brain for physics. Our teacher was also the best -- Mr. Hennon. We always had fun classes, we had a great group of people in there, so that made it my favorite, probably.”  

UTIL Ildemaro Vargas: “My favorite class was gym. I liked to play basketball and soccer a lot. My favorite sport to play was basketball.”  

OF Jacob Young: “I’m a big numbers guy. It always just kind of came easy, so I liked all math classes. In college, I got my degree in business. All numbers always came easy to me and are kind of like a puzzle to me, so it was always interesting. … I liked calc[ulus] a lot, I liked finance -- real world stuff, statistics I liked a lot.”