Doug Glanville doesn’t have any haters.
The beloved former professional baseball player had a successful nine-year career at the game’s highest level and did so by doing it the hard way.
Glanville attended the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, where he excelled both on and off the diamond.
He majored in systems engineering and to this day, is one of only five Penn alumni to play in Major League Baseball since 1951.
In fact, Glanville was the first African-American Ivy League graduate to play in and reach the majors.
From 1996-2004, he played on a few teams, including the Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago Cubs and Texas Rangers.
The most memorable moment of Glanville’s professional career came in Game 3 of the 2003 NLCS as a member of the Cubs, when he launched what would end up being the game-winning triple in the top of the 11th inning to give Chicago a 5-4 lead over the Florida Marlins.
The Cubs held on for the win, giving Glanville one of the best moments of his career.
He retired in 2005 by signing a one-year minor league contract with the Phillies, wanting to walk away from his baseball career in the uniform he grew up a fan of and for the team he played for the most.
During Glanville’s career, he recorded exactly 1,100 hits, which included 59 home runs, 333 RBIs, and 168 stolen bases.
It wasn’t a Hall of Fame career by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a damn good one.
These days, Glanville can be found teaching at various universities, including at his alma mater, where he recently taught a class on the intersection of sports and social justice.
The 54-year-old is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut‘s Neag School of Education.
He was also a member of ESPN for seven years starting in 2010, in various analyst roles, that also included taking part in social justice discussions and programs.
Glanville helped highlight the profiles of Jackie Robinson and Roberto Clemente, and even traveled to Cuba to interview Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, and former President Barack Obama. He was very hands-on and wasn’t afraid to get his hands dirty when it came to his work.
He then returned to the network in 2019 where he contributes to various ESPN programs including Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter and calls Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN Radio.
The former Major Leaguer has since made it his mission to help make society aware of everyday injustices that happen.
“You need a lot of different skills,” Glanville answered when asked about what it takes to create change back in 2018.
“You need collaboration, you need messaging, you need supporters, you need to know how to communicate, and I figured learning that firsthand would be good to share.
“I thought my personal experiences as an African-American in this country could be universal lessons for all of us.”
Glanville has been marching to the beat of his own drum his whole life, and hasn’t stopped.
That is what has made him so successful. Whether that was with a bat or glove in his hand, or in the front of a classroom lecturing to hundreds of students, Glanville did things his way.
And still does.
