Stephen Edward Piscotty (born January 14, 1991 in Pleasanton, CA) is an outfielder for the Oakland Athletics. He previously played for the St. Louis Cardinals. An excellent athlete overall, and despite being an outfielder, he has been clocked up to 93 miles per hour as a pitcher. He played college baseball for Stanford and was the St. Louis Cardinals' first-round selection (36th overall pick) in the 2012 Major League Baseball draft.

He made his major league debut on July 21, 2015, and was the Cardinals' organization Player of the Year that season. starting in left field against the Chicago White Sox and went 1 for 4, scoring a run. Because of injuries to various Cardinals outfielders, including LF Matt Holliday, he played regularly from that point forward and did quite well, hitting .310 with 7 homers and 39 RBIs in 62 games.

On September 28th, however, he was injured in a violent collision with CF Peter Bourjos in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the 7th inning, Josh Harrison hit a ball to the gap in left-center and Bourjos's knee hit Stephen square in the head as the two were going for the ball. Piscotty lay motionless on the ground for several minutes and was strapped to a board before being taken to hospital.

He finished the 2015 season with a .305 average in 63 games. 15 doubles, 4 triples and 7 homers, 29 runs and 39 RBIs in 63 games. He was the team's best hitter during its surprise loss to the Chicago Cubs in the Division Series, going 6 for 16 .375) with 3 homers, 5 runs and 6 RBIs in the four games. As a result, Stephen finished 6th in Rookie of the Year voting in 2015.

A "gap hitter", Piscotty's emergence late in 2015 was one of the main reasons the Cardinals did not aggressively seek to retain RF Jason Heyward, who left as a free agent in the off-season. In 2016, he played 153 games and hit .273 with 35 doubles, 22 homers and 85 RBIs. He was the team's main rightfielder, making 136 starts at the position. Having convinced the team that he was for real, Piscotty signed a six-year, $33.5 million contract extension just as the 2017 season opened.

In his second game of the year, on April 4th, 2016 he performed a painful run around the bases as he reached base when plunked on the left elbow by Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, but in the process was hit on the other elbow by C Willson Contreras' throw. He then scored when the Cubs misplayed a dribbler near first base, 2B Javier Baez picked up the ball and tried to gun him down at home, but instead whacked him in the head, forcing him to leave the game with a suspected concussion.

On December 14, 2017, Piscotty was traded to the Oakland Athletics in return for two prospects, Yairo Munoz and Max Schrock. The trade came one day after the Cards had acquired Marcell Ozuna from the Miami Marlins, making Stephen's future with the team even cloudier. It had the advantage of bringing him closer to home, a big consideration as his mother had been diagnosed with ALS a few months earlier. Sadly, Gretchen Piscotty passed away from the disease in early May, aged just 55.

He spent some time on the bereavement list and upon his return on May 15th, hit an emotional home run in his first at-bat against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park. He made his way slowly around the bases and placed his hand over his heart, dedicating the homer to his late mother. For the year, he hit .267 with 27 homers and 88 RBIs and was one of the key players responsible for the A's making it to the postseason, something no one had expected as the year got under way.

Given his mother's passing from ALS in 2018, Stephen, his father Mike and brother Nick have been active in the fight against the terrible disease. He was part of the group that pushed to have Major League Baseball officially proclaim Lou Gehrig Day to be celebrated annually on June 2nd, beginning in 2021. Mike has also led in creating the ALS CURE Project, an organization that focuses on leadership and sponsors scientific research in developing a cure for ALS.

See the article penned by Stephen at the I am ALS site. He is also on Twitter @spiscotty.

(excerpted from Baseball Almanac, BR Bullpen & Wikipedia)