House Calls at Second Base

Bobby Kay was captain of the Harvard baseball team this year and its starting second baseman. Coming out of high school in Southern California, he was a celebrated and much-recruited baseball and basketball star, but a string of injuries in recent years has curtailed an otherwise promising baseball career. A Biology major and a pre-med, the Dunster House resident will attend Johns Hopkins medical school in the fall. Kay was recently named an honorable mention academic All-American.

I'm from Beverly Hills, actually, and I went to Beverly Hills High School. I don't really know too many celebrity stories--a couple of my classmates' parents are pretty well known: Monty Hall's daughter was in my class in high school, as was William Shatner's daughter, so I knew some people like that.

Right away when I came here, everyone was like, "All right, you're a rich kid," and basically, as people have gotten to know me, they've realized that I'm not really like that.

Even now, though, when people who've known me for a couple of years here find out that I'm from Beverly Hills, they're really surprised, and say, "I didn't know that," or "You don't seem like that."

When I was recruited to come here, I didn't know what to expect, really, from the baseball program, because coming from California, I didn't really know how the ballplayers would be. So in my senior year, I came out and visited--at the time, actually, the team got snowed out--so I just visited, and saw the guys work out in Briggs Cage, and I was really impressed because the guys were really good ballplayers.

And then when I talked to the guys they were really cool, and that was really important because when you play 40 games within about seven weeks, you have to really like the guys.

I talked to a lot of the guys on that visit, and I really liked them. Ultimately, that was probably the most important reason in my decision to come here--how good the people were, and how nice, and how well I would get along with them.

Since I've gotten here, I've taken courses in various areas: anthropology--because I like anthropology--and a couple Fine Arts classes. Last semester I took a Psych course--a lot of different courses in areas which aren't directly related to things I'm going to be doing, but which I'll really never have a chance to take again.

The people in my pre-med courses know me primarily as a student, and when they find out that I'm captain of the baseball team, they're very surprised. And then the guys on the baseball team were really surprised I was premed--they said the reason they kept me on the team was to bolster the team grade-point average.

When I was a freshman, I looked at the team's schedule and I looked at all my courses, and I said, "How am I going to do all this?" Interestingly enough, in three of my four years here, I've done better in the spring semester than I have in the fall. I don't know what the explanation is--maybe I just use my time better or work more efficiently then.

In my family, academics were always first, sports second, and women, or social life, was third. As I've been here I've more or less followed that. In the fall, I see a lot more people, whereas in the spring, I just can't do that--my social life does suffer.

When I came out of high school, a number of pro ball teams were pushing me to sign contracts with them, but I said I wouldn't--I wanted to go to college for four years. I wanted to make sure to get a good education first.

I've had a great time playing baseball here, and if I had been drafted by professional baseball, I would definately consider it. But I've had a couple of injuries and I didn't do as well this year as I had hoped, so I don't think I'll get drafted.

So I'll go to med school now, and I have no regrets about that. Actually, it will make it easier because now I don't have a decision to make.