The Survivor

World Series MVP Cole Hamels forged his dogged determination to succeed on the baseball fields of San Diego

COLE HAMELS has the sports world by the tail. The 24-year-old lefty from Rancho Bernardo High was the 2008 World Series MVP, for helping pitch the Philadelphia Phillies past the Tampa Bay Rays. Such celebrity brings entertaining reward. He has appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show — nailing a dunking booth throw on his second attempt. And Hamels did Late Show with David Letterman. Dressed in a dapper dark suit and tie, he read off a list of “Top 10 Things That Went Through Cole Hamels’ Mind After Winning the World Series.” (No. 4: “Seriously, how cool a name is Cole Hamels?”)

What else is going right? Hey — cover of San Diego Magazine is not too shabby. He was also asked to do the coin flip for the late-season Chargers-Raiders game (but had to decline, for scheduling reasons). Though he says he was shy as a teen, he’s front and center now. He’s become accustomed to — and is quite adept at — posing for cameras, as evidenced at a December photo shoot in Beverly Hills for a national literacy campaign, where we caught up with the lanky heartthrob and met his blonde bombshell wife. Hamels and Heidi Strobel, 30, a contestant on Survivor: Amazon and a Playboy alum, were married on New Year’s Eve 2006.

Shy? Hamels — who seems as effusive now as he appears both genuine and congenial — met Strobel by approaching her at an autograph booth. It was just after her Survivor run; he was still in the minor leagues, rehabbing a minor injury.

“I asked her out, and she said I’d have to come to her hometown in Missouri for a date,” recalls Hamels. “I was like, ‘Hmmm, where is Missouri, again?’ But she wound up coming up to me later and asked for my autograph.”

THEY ARE BOTH SURVIVORS, of physical sorts. Besides romping through the Amazon on television, Strobel overcame a severe kidney failure. And Hamels, after a stellar sophomore year at Rancho Bernardo (his pitching won-loss record was 11-1), suffered a huge setback when he broke his left arm before his junior year.

He unknowingly fractured the arm playing in a neighborhood football game. In a subsequent summer-league baseball game against rival Poway, he tossed a ball from the mound and heard a huge crack come from his humerus (upper arm) bone. The pain was unimaginable.

Hamels’ mom, Amanda, had been an intern with the Padres organization. She was able to get the team’s surgeon, Jan Fronek, to take her son’s case. Everyone involved knew they were dealing with a potential “million-dollar arm.” The procedure to repair the break appeared to be a success. But the rehabilitation process wore on the 17-year-old.

“I pretty much went into depression mode,” says Hamels. “School didn’t feel the same anymore. I let my work ethic slide, and my grades declined. I’d always been a nervous person, and my social life was not good. Baseball had been my identity.”

Veteran Rancho Bernardo baseball coach Sam Blalock — his program is called “The Factory,” since it has produced so many Major League Baseball draft picks — remembers Hamels would come to practice every day, even though he couldn’t pitch. “He helped the other guys; he’d shag balls; he was on the bench talking baseball with the team. He was a good teammate. And he did the exercises that slowly got him back in shape.”

The excitement among colleges and pro scouts that had ignited after Hamels’ sophomore year evaporated after the injury. But there were several scouts on hand for his senior-year return, a game against Valley Center. With all eyes on him, Hamels struck out the first three batters he faced on nine pitches. He finished the game with 10 strikeouts in five innings, and went on to a perfect 10-0 season. His ERA was an astounding 0.39, and he fanned 130 batters in 71 innings.

UCLA and the University of San Diego stayed interested in him. But when the Phillies drafted him in the first round, Hamels went pro.

HE HAS EVERY RIGHT TO BELIEVE the rain gods stole a record from him. In a playoff run in which Hamels beat the Milwaukee Brewers once, and the Los Angeles Dodgers twice, he then downed the Rays in the World Series opener. That tied a record for most post-season wins as a starting pitcher. Hamels was dominating Tampa Bay in Game Five, winning 2-0 in the fifth inning, when heavy rains made continuation of the game nearly impossible.

“I couldn’t feel the ball anymore,” he says. Hamels believes the game should have been suspended sooner. It wasn’t, and he gave up two runs to tie the game. “One run was a bad pitch by me, but I could blame the other run on the rain, yes.”

The game was finally stopped, and finished two days later, after the rains subsided. When the Phillies finished celebrating their first World Series title since 1980, Hamels picked up a Camaro as part of the prize for being named MVP. That night was Strobel’s birthday ... so guess who got the car?

For someone still so young, Hamels seems to have the right mindset to continue on the road to success. He credits that comeback in his senior year at Rancho Bernardo with giving him the necessary confidence.

“I felt like that was going to be my last shot,” he says. “I decided I wasn’t going to have any regrets — I was going to push as hard as I could, and I wasn’t going to be afraid to fail.”

It worked.

The Padres skipped over Hamels in the 2002 draft in favor of Khalil Greene. But Hamels maintains local ties. His parents live here. And whenever he lands at Lindbergh Field, his first thought? Taquitos at El Indio. He’s also a fan of Jimmy O’s, the Brigantine and “good Mexican food that you can eat outside, any day of the year.”

It’s unlikely we’ll ever see him in a Padres uniform. Sad — especially since he grew up admiring closer Trevor Hoffman. Hamels even enters Philadelphia home games to “Thunderstruck,” a song by AC/DC, the same rockers responsible for Hoffman’s “Hells Bells” theme song.

But we’ll see plenty of Hamels in the national spotlight. “He has something a coach can’t teach — he has ‘it,’ ” says RB’s Blalock. “He’s the best pitcher I’ve ever seen in high school baseball. He’ll take on any challenge, and he’ll survive.”

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